EXISTENTIAL THEMES IN LITERATURE: A HIGH SCHOOL CURRICULUM
Amy Cristine Ewart
B.A. California State University, Sacramento, 2004
PROJECT
Submitted in partial satisfaction of
the requirements for the degree of
MASTER OF ARTS
in
LIBERAL ARTS
at
CALIFORNIA STATE UNIVERSITY, SACRAMENTO
SUMMER
2011
© 2011
Amy Cristine Ewart
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
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EXISTENTIAL THEMES IN LITERATURE: A HIGH SCHOOL CURRICULUM
A Project
By
Amy Cristine Ewart
Approved by:
, Committee Chair
Dr. Victoria Shinbrot
Date
iii
Student: Amy Cristine Ewart
I certify that this student has met the requirements for format contained in the University
format manual, and that this project is suitable for shelving in the Library and credit is to
be awarded for this project.
, Graduate Coordinator
Dr. Victoria Shinbrot
Date
Department of Liberal Arts
iv
Abstract
of
EXISTENTIAL THEMES IN LITERATURE:
A HIGH SCHOOL CURRICULUM
by
Amy Cristine Ewart
I have created and developed an interdisciplinary high school curriculum that examines
themes of existential thought in selected literature. The literature examined in this
curriculum represents existential thought during the post Enlightenment era, the Czarist
Regime of Russia and the war stricken world of twentieth century Europe. This course is
designed to engage students in deep analysis of literature in order to extract, examine and
discuss the existential themes of the text. The curriculum is divided into several units and
two distinct sections. The introductory section provides students with a clear depiction of
existential thought as it was first introduced by Kierkegaard and Nietzsche and affords
students the opportunity to develop the skills necessary to identify and evaluate
existential themes in literary excerpts. The second section provide an opportunity for
students to read, analyze, evaluate, and critically assess four pieces of literature that
contain some of the many existential themes introduced in the first section. Each piece of
literature is also introduced with a general and over-arching introduction to the historical
social and political context within which each author wrote. Throughout the entire course
students will be asked to reflect on the literature and make distinct connections to their
own lives and the role of existential thought today. As students analyze literature and the
historical context of each author’s life, they will also be identifying more modern
manifestations of the existential notions of anxiety, absurdity, alienation, freedom,
authenticity and death. This will allow them to understand and identify the manifestation
of existential thought in their own lives and assess the relevance of such deep
philosophical thought in the world today.
, Committee Chair
Dr. Victoria Shinbrot
Date
v
DEDICATION
This project is dedicated to Josh Rasin. Thank you for standing beside me while I
explored the existential realms of my own existence, waded through the deep pools of my
own anxiety, discovered many of life’s absurdities and pushed relentlessly against those
outer boundaries of existence. Thank you for teaching me that it is through love that the
meaning of existence is found.
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I would like to acknowledge all of those existential thinkers who came before and will
come after this moment in history. It is through them that the sense of wonder and the
relentless search for the truths in life will continue on throughout the ages. I would also
like to thank Dr. Victoria Shinbrot for her incredible support and unrelenting dedication
to the foundations of true academics and classroom expectations. Last, but not least, I
would like to thank and acknowledge my parents for their incredible support and love
throughout this process of furthering my education and my own personal growth. I could
not have done this without them.
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
Page
Dedication...........................................................................................................................vi
Acknowledgements............................................................................................................vii
Chapter
1. INTRODUCTION
Course Overview.....................................................................................................1
Course Syllabus.......................................................................................................4
2. COURSE UNITS
Unit One: Introduction to Existentialism.................................................................8
Unit Two: Fathers of Existentialism-Kierkegaard and Nietzsche.........................29
Unit Three: Dostoyevsky and Notes from the Underground.................................47
Unit Four: Franz Kafka and The Metamorphosis..................................................64
Unit Five: Albert Camus and The Stranger...........................................................80
Unit Six: Jean Paul Sartre and No Exit................................................................100
Works Cited ....................................................................................................................116
Bibliography....................................................................................................................117
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1
Chapter 1
COURSE OVERVIEW
Summary
This course will examine several sources of literature with the intention of
extracting the existential themes found within each text, closely examining them, and
comparing them to one another and to our own world. The adolescent experience
generates a number of existential questions simply by default. This time of adolescence is
like a whirlwind that forces students to stand at the edge of their very own existence and
ask the questions like “Why am I here?” “What is my purpose in the world?” “Who am
I?” This is what makes this course so critical to the development of student’s critical
thinking and their ability to identify and decipher complex philosophical dilemmas. What
is most important about this course is that it caterers to individuals who are the most
receptive to the depths of existential thoughts because by their very nature they are
already there, and immersed in it. Every turn they make, they question life, take risks and
make their very own leaps of faith. This curriculum is designed to embrace and extract
not only the themes in the literature reviewed, but also the existential themes found in the
lives of students. The overall objective of this curriculum is to teach students what
existentialism is, how to identify it presence in literature and how to think beyond the
scope of objectivity.
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The key concept of this course is as follows:
Within the texts there will be some combination of the themes below. Students will be
examining and discussing the realities of these themes in the lives of the characters and in
addition to discussing the experience of the characters, students will be reflecting upon
how they experience these themes in their own realities.

Alienation

Absurdity

Anxiety

Freedom

Death

Authenticity
Course Organization:
In order to have the opportunity to see the development of existential thought from its
roots through the present era the texts for this course will be read chronologically. The
course will begin with an introduction to existentialism as a school of thought in order to
form a basic understanding of the topic at hand. From there, students will read texts by
two of the founding philosophers of existentialism and then move on to chronologically
ordered literature. The reading schedule will reflect these three major course segments:
Introduction, Philosophers, and Literature. Reflections, discussions, and assessment will
take place during each section as well as at the end of each unit.
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Texts:
Introduction: Unit 1
Philosophers: Unit 2
Literature: Units 3-6
Dr. Nathan Scott
Mirrors of Man in
Existentialism
Soren Kierkegaard
Present Age
Fear and Trembling
Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Notes from Underground
Jean Wahl
Short History of
Existentialism
Fredrich Nietzsche
Thus Spoke Zarathustra
Gay Science (excerpts)
Franz Kafka
Metamorphosis
Albert Camus
The Stranger
Jean Paul Sartre
“No Exit”
*Please note that this is not a complete list of texts and will be supplemented by other
articles and excerpts throughout the course.
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COURSE SYLLABUS:
Philosophy/Literature
High School, California 2010-2011
Instructor: Ms. Amy Ewart
Period: 6
Website: http://existentialthemes.wetpaint.com/
Room: 1
Course Length:
One eighteen-week term of 90 minute block classes.
Course Description:
This course will survey the themes of existential thought in nineteenth and
twentieth century literature, as well as examine and identify how individuals define their
authentic identity through their relationship to the absurd, alienation, freedom, death and
anxiety. The underlying questions to be asking throughout this course are, “how do these
five areas of life impact the experiences of humanity?” and “does each individual have
the same experience and definition of each one of these five realms and do they harness
the same relationships to these complex realms as one another?” By seeking the
existential realities of the characters, students should be able to recognize the significance
and role of self-examination, the investigation of the limits and boundaries of the
individual and the impact that existential thought has had upon society.
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Course Organization:
This course is a lecture/seminar course with detailed introductory lectures when
new topics or authors are introduced and followed by seminar-based discussions.
Students are expected to read assigned reading daily and keep an on-going journal
throughout the entire semester of reading notes, which may include insights, questions, or
reflections. Students who plan to take this course must have passed at least two years of
Honors English. This course is open to juniors and seniors only.
Course Objectives:

To provide students with an in depth exposure to existential philosophy and
literature.

To demonstrate the multiple facets of literature and how literature is able to
provoke and illustrate philosophical, sociological, emotional, and historical
realms.

To develop and enhances students’ critical thinking skills and ability to analyze
and interpret literary themes.

To assist students in becoming more comfortable with examining abstract
concepts and ideas.
Students will be able to:

Recognize philosophical and existential themes in literature.

Write clear reflective analyses of literature and create clear
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Required Texts:







Mirrors of Man in Existentialism: Nathan A. Scott
The Gay Science Fredrich Nietzsche
Notes from Underground Fyodor Dostoyevsky
The Basic Kafka Franz Kafka
The Stranger Albert Camus
No Exit Jean Paul Sartre
Additional excerpts to be provided by instructor
Assignments and Grading:

Midterm (10%)

Final (10%)

Homework and Class work (50%)

Journal: (15%)

Oral Presentation: (5%)

Group Project: (10%)
Student Responsibilities/Behavior Expectations:
It is expected that students contribute to a positive learning environment where all
students can achieve to their greatest potential. Any behavior that disrupts student
learning will not be tolerated. To ensure a positive learning environment the following
rules must be followed:

Show courtesy and respect for everyone

Raise your hand to ask or answer questions

Come to class prepared to learn
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Behavior that violates the class rules will result in logical consequences including verbal
warning, detention, parent/guardian contact, or a referral to the office and on-campus
suspension.
Homework and Assignments:
Students will be required to do between 20 minutes to an hour of homework or
studying every night. There will be homework and studying assigned on the weekend.
Homework will be in the form of note taking on readings, research projects, writing
assignments, skill building activities, and studying for class discussions, quizzes, and
tests. Assignments turned in late will automatically be docked half the points.
Exceptions include excused absences; students will have one day for each excused
absence to turn in their assignments.
Student/Parent/Teacher Communication:
Parent calls home will occur to congratulate exemplary work and to inform
parents if students are not working to their full potential. Parents and students are
encouraged to e-mail or call me concerning class work and student achievement.
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Chapter 2
COURSE UNITS
Unit One: Introduction to Existentialism
Section One: Accessing Prior Knowledge; Students’ Relationship to Existential Thought
Time Frame: Three ninety-minute class periods
Objective:
This section is intended to introduce students to critical thinking and selfexamination. In many ways, this portion of the unit is designed to get students to think
outside of the box and relate their own interpretations of themselves to the world around
them. This will assist students in creating an overall sense of what it means to exist in this
current place in time and therefore should prepare them to examine how authors
contemplated this very idea throughout history. Once students recognize what it means to
examine life in this way, they will be better prepared to extract the existential themes
illustrated throughout the pieces of literature selected for this course. It should “awaken”
students to think more “existentially” which will in turn provide them with the tools
necessary to recognize existential thoughts, moments, feelings and ideas in the literature
examined throughout the term.
Overview:
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In addition to jumpstarting the student thought process, students will also examine
what it means to search for and detect ‘theme’ in literature; therefore we will also refine
what the term existentialism means, how to identify it in literature, and how to closely
examine text for such a deep philosophical theme.
Students will examine the historical development of existential thought and
develop a keen understanding of what deep philosophical questions it wishes to address.
They will also take into account what historically relevant events occurred during the
times in which existential writing was most prevalent. This segment of the unit will
consist primarily of students evaluating their own personal connection to the existential
dilemmas of human kind. This will be done through oral presentations, reading journals,
song analysis and connections to the cultural experience that students have today.
This introductory section will be divided into the following two sections: The existential
thought process experienced first hand and what is existentialism-a brief historical
overview
Summary:
Students will be asked to contemplate the very basic questions of existence and
examine their view on the meaning of life. This segment will provide students an
opportunity to delve into the depths of critical thinking and self-reflection. It will also
allow them to witness how differently we all view ourselves, the world around us, and
our place within. This purpose of this segment is to get students warmed up, connect their
dendrites to this unfamiliar way of thinking by making it relevant, challenging and
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interesting. This will be accomplished through oral presentations that address certain
reflective, contemplative and existential questions. Students will have time to share with
the class their own views, own understanding and own perspectives of their own
adolescent worlds. It will give students voice, create a safe environment and encourage
individual and independent thinking.
Assignments/Assessments:

Oral Presentations

Reading Journals
An informal assessment will occur as students present their “answers” to their own
existential questions during the oral presentations. This will allow the instructor to gauge
whether or not students are able to approach the topic of existentialism with critical
examination and thorough analysis. It is necessary that students demonstrate the ability to
think critically and philosophically inquire about the world around them. This ability
must be met before moving forward in the curriculum, as it is the crucial foundation for
the entire course.
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Assignment 1a: Oral Presentations
The objective of the oral presentations assignment is two fold. First, and more
generally speaking, this assignment is designed to open students up to one another in the
classroom and to establish a safe and trusting environment. For students to share their
own answers to some of life’s most basic existential questions requires them to take a
risk, their own leap of faith, and to delve into a realm that may in many ways fill them
with anxiety and deep philosophical doubt. Therefore, in order for students to truly
engage in this course, they need to feel that the environment of the classroom feels safe
enough to do so, thus the oral presentation at the very beginning of class pushes their
boundaries and allows the instructor to facilitate a warm and inclusive environment. The
other, and more academically driven objective of this assignment is to provide students
with an opportunity to seek and identify their own beliefs about existence and the
meaning of life. The over arching concept here is to get students thinking for themselves
and to jump head first into the existential realm of thinking.
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Handout 1a: Oral Presentations
The purpose of the oral presentation is not to measure your current knowledge of
philosophy or of existentialism, but for you to give your peers some insight into what
drives you as a human being. We are all on this Earth together, existing in some fashion
or another, and, well, let’s face it, we aren’t always on the same page as one another.
Please take time tonight to ponder the answers to the questions below and answer them
according to your own thoughts and feelings. This is not a collaborative project, nor a
research project, so resist the temptation to use the opinions of family members, friends,
and the Internet. Take some time with this and think of this assignment as a freedom to
express yourself. Good luck!
Ask yourself the following questions and respond:

What is my purpose?

Why am I here?

What is the meaning of life?

What is the meaning of my existence?

Where do I fit in the world?

What is important to me in life? Freedom? Knowledge? Belongings?

What characteristics of self are important to me?
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
How do I view myself in relation to the rest of the world?

Am I really the same person that people view me to be?
Feel free to insert any additional questions along this line of thinking that you would like
to address. Be insightful!
We will be presenting in class for the next 2-3 days. I will be randomly calling on
students each day, so be prepared to present at any time. If you are not ready to present
when you are called, you will receive zero points for this assignment. You also must
prepare a one-page paper* with your answers and insights typed and ready to be turned in
immediately following your presentation.
*Note: Your paper does not need to be in essay format, but must have coherent thoughts
and sentences relating to your presentation. Also, it must demonstrate that you have done
some real thinking about your responses and preparation for your presentation.
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Assignment 1b:
It is critical that students demonstrate their ability to critically assess texts,
lectures, videos and activities therefore they will be expected to participate in daily
writings that will record thoughts, insights, feelings and ideas about existential concepts,
figures and events. Therefore, students will be responsible for keeping a reading journal
for the duration of the course. Students’ journals should include their own insights,
thoughts and reflections about texts, classroom discussions, lectures or activities
regarding existential events, figures and ideas. These should be daily entries, which
should include a combination of notes, drawings, ideas, and “ah-ha” moments. It is also
expected that students contribute at least three to five sentences of writing per day in their
journals. If students choose to draw their reflections, they must also support their
illustrations with words clearly explaining how this encompasses what they have learned.
These journals will be a book in progress and will consist of students’ very own feelings,
thoughts and ideas. They will also be recorded in a designated composition book or
binder. Think of this journal as a constant dialogue between the students and their
instructor where students can share their analyses and thoughts about the content of this
course and where the instructor can provide critical and constructive feedback. These
journals should be reflected upon on a weekly basis. Reflecting upon thoughts and ideas
will help you to become better writers and learn more about your own relationship to
history. The following will be taken into consideration when grading: Was there
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evidence of effort to reflect upon texts, classroom discussion, videos or other activities
done in class? Did you enter reflections on a daily basis? Did your entries clearly
demonstrate that you read the assigned texts and participated in class?
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Handout 1b: Daily Journals Assignment
As we go through the semester we will be reading several different texts. There
will be informative texts discussing the foundations of existentialism, novels, short
stories, plays and philosophical works. Due to the extensive range of texts, I require that
each student keep a journal throughout the semester. This journal will contain thoughts,
questions, quotes, insights, “ah-ha moments” and general notes regarding the readings,
lectures, and class discussions. Each day you will write three to five sentences regarding
the text being discussed. Also, keep in mind that sometimes texts don’t “speak” to us as
much as others, so you may feel as though you have less to say about some texts than
others, which is okay. If this is the case, your journal entry might be about how this text
doesn’t resonate with you or perhaps how it did not make sense to you. Please be aware
that if this if your entry, you must explain specifically why it did not resonate with you.
Journal Entry Examples: (See also Journal Rubric in Appendix)
Acceptable Entry:
While reading Camus’ The Stranger I found that Meursault’s lack of emotion for his
mother’s death was atypical of a son’s reaction to such an event. It seems that this theme
of apathy is the general tone of his character throughout the novel so far. I am not sure
how this characteristic relates to the existential individual. Is there something more to his
character than this that should have been revealed while reading the text?
Unacceptable:
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After reading Camus’ The Stranger I didn’t get it. He seemed boring. I didn’t like this
book.
Unit One: Introduction to Existentialism
Section Two: Introduction to Existentialism
Time Frame: Six ninety-minute class periods
Objective:
In an age of mass production and constant media stimulation, it is imperative to
provoke our students to think for themselves, to embrace individuality and refine their
senses in order to recognize the deeper, more subtle components of life. The high school
student is the prime candidate for learning about, and embracing, existential literature
since they are living through the stage of adolescence when the struggle of the alienated
individual searching for meaning and understanding in life is so prevalent. Students at
this age are for the first time recognizing the absurdity of the world, grasping for freedom
and all that comes with being free, and are beginning to recognize the limitations of
human life. With the right direction and right atmosphere, students will find themselves
discovering some of the most profound philosophical concepts in the world of
existentialism. This unit is dedicated to laying out parameters, (not to be used
interchangeably with the terms boundaries and limits) of what existentialism is, its
historical relevance, its organic development throughout the world of philosophy and
literature and how to recognize its themes in samples of nineteenth and twentieth-century
writings. As a result of this introduction, students will be able to define existentialism,
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identify key components of existential thought and demonstrate through biographical
accounts, timelines, and primary source analysis knowledge of existential origins, themes
and controversies.
Overview:
Students will focus on defining, identifying, and evaluating the major existential
themes found in the literature of this course. These existential themes are identified as the
deep exploration of the absurd, alienation, isolation, freedom and death, an uncontainable method of thought a close examination of existence and the relevance of
choices and freedom.
Existentialism as a “school of thought” can be said to have officially established itself
in the world of pop culture post World War II in Paris. Through authors like Camus and
Sartre, people were now accessing the troubled world of the existential mind. People
scattered these authors’ works across their living room coffee tables, discussed the latest
existential article found in Vogue magazine and everyone in the halls of academia found
themselves high on the buzz of existential reflection. It was a short-lived craze that would
eventually be chalked up as a post war emotional response and its popularity among to
masses declined almost as quickly as it rolled in. Students will begin their inquiry by
hypothesizing what led to this instant popularity and what caused its ultimate decline.
This leads to the first set of concrete questions that students must really delve into. Is
tragedy the trigger to provoke deep self-examination? Why would this post war world
generate a perfect moment in history for existential thinking to manifest in the realm of
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pop culture? Why would this way of thinking and this way of being be unsustainable by
the masses? Could this really be the first time that humanity entered the realm of
existential thought? What other points in history do you that existential thought may have
found its way into literature and philosophical thinking? Why do you suppose this is?
Overall, this introduction to existentialism will invoke students to recognize the ageold question that has plagued mankind throughout history: “Why am I here?”
Existentialism tells us that there are no objective, concrete answers to this question and
therefore, according to the existentialists, the real and true condition of mankind is not
one that is part of a perfectly organized cosmos, but rather one of homelessness,
abandonment, and exile. At the conclusion of this introductory section students will be
able to examine and identify the main ideas and philosophies of historically relevant
thinkers, identify and evaluate the culturally relevant changes of the world through a
close examination of history in Europe, Asia and the United States between the
seventeenth and twenty-first centuries. Students will also be able to identify, analyze and
explain the five themes of existentialism and develop and clear foundation of how to
identify these themes in literature.
This introduction relies heavily upon a brief historical examination and therefore
students gain foundational knowledge of the age of reason and correlate its connection to
the beginning of existential thought. Existentialism in the nineteenth century can be
viewed in many ways as a response to the Age of Reason. Philosophers and
Enlightenment thinkers of the centuries prior had placed mankind’s nature in a position
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synonymous with reason. There was an order to everything, including nature, and
therefore this order included man. It was felt by the enlightenment thinkers that man’s
purpose and place could be understood and explained by means of logic. According to
the enlightenment thinkers, not only could life be understood through empirical data and
experience, but also men themselves had some official place in the world according to the
order of things.
Thinkers that contributed to this overall sense of the world included, but were not
limited to, Isaac Newton, Galileo Galilei, Denis Diderot, Nicholas Copernicus, John
Locke, and Jean-Jacques Rousseau. One of the first, and most prominent reactions to the
Enlightenment thinkers was Hegel (1770-1831). According to Hegel, each life, each
finite reality of man, was all a part of the Absolute Mind. The attempt to understand any
finite thing seemed synonymous with the drive towards the desire to understand the
whole world. The more inquiries we make about the world and ourselves, the closer we
come to knowing, understanding and capturing the Absolute and Infinite Self.
Moving along the timeline of history, humanity also had its own reactions to the
first era of mass production—the Industrial Age. During the Industrial Revolution so
many components of society were changing; particularly components that felt fixed and
unchangeable. People began to feel uncertain with the growth of major cities, factories,
the middle class, and population, which occurred at a furiously rapid pace. Many artisans,
craftsman, and tradesmen were quickly replaced with factories and machines that could
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mass-produce goods. This was the beginning of what we currently witness in the 21st
century with the settled capitalist society and the age of technology.
One of the greatest responses to the capitalist ‘machine’ was Karl Marx. Marx
recognized the toll that capitalism took upon the worker. The assembly lines required
men, women and children to perform daunting tasks over and over and over again with
no actual attachment or connection to their labors. No moments of reflection to stand
back and revel at the result of their hard labor and think, “look at what I have created”.
The workers were completely alienated from the fruits of their labor, and according to
Marx this meant that they were also alienated from their own identity and self. The gap
between man and himself, his fellow man and his community grew disparagingly larger
and larger as the capitalist structure became more and more permanent and efficient. The
theme in the 19th century was that of alienation and a widening distance of the individual
from the whole.
Summary:
Overall, students will develop a keen understanding of existential thought, how it
infiltrated society and the historical motivations that fueled it to continue. Students will
walk away from this unit with this general understanding as well as a solid foundation of
the major themes of existential thought. For the purposes of this curriculum, these major
themes can be categorized into five realms and are as follows.
Existentialist Imagination: (as witnessed in the literature of twentieth-century authors)
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The existentialist imagination lays its foundation upon the reflections that man’s
experience is that of exclusion, alienation and “of being shut out”. It is through man’s
search of comfort and belonging in a world that he has been arbitrarily placed in without
his consent that he is unable to find any safety or meaning.
Importance of the Subjectivity of Truth:
Reflections of the meaning of life must be centered on man himself and he must possess a
passion for the quest to understand the realities of his own existence. Man should concern
himself with seeking his own truth and not settling for the objective truths offered to him
about his world. Man is responsible for recognizing that there are no objective answers to
life’s plaguing questions and that nothing is accessible through the objective experience
of the world.
Achieving the Authentic Life:
Man is ultimately on a quest to gain and maintain the courage to live a life authentically
and not simply seek comfort and refuge in the “social stream”. Human beings must be
able to recognize the lack of authenticity found in mass culture. This element of
existentialism focuses tremendously on the individual, which by the nature of
individuality is inevitably accompanied by isolation and loneliness. (Student discussion
here should consist of relevant and relatable examples of this in order to create student
understanding. Relate it to their lives as they experience them now, the high school
student’s life is FULL of these types of experiences and are the best candidates to truly
understand what this means.)
Boundaries:
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This component recognizes that human life is only understood when we are able to live
on the boundary of life. We must feel “shipwrecked” or plunged into the deepest despair,
anxious, aware of vulnerability and death that we can begin to experience the secret
realities of our collective experiences. Great literary examples of this are The
Strangerand “The Hunger Artist”.
Indirect Communication:
Those who make a true and passionate attempt to think existentially are attempting in
some way to make sense of their own life. This thinking will inevitably lead to a desire to
communicate newly formed understandings but the traditional expository writing will
simply not suffice. Existential thoughts are a way of being, not thinking; therefore these
understandings and ways of being can only be expressed in their entirety through
literature, poetry, short stories, novels, plays and pseudonyms. These are the vehicles that
will plunge the audience into the throws of the absurd, and cause them to experience the
realities of alienation, anguish, death, boundaries, and cover them in a blanket of anxiety.
This is where the audience finds themselves only at the mercy of themselves to create the
tools necessary to fight through these realities and search for the subjective truths that lie
within to deal with the depths of existentialism.
Activities/Assessment:

Facebook Templates of the Enlightenment thinkers

Timeline of major historical events and great thinkers from the seventeenthcentury to the present.
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Students will be given a formal assessment where they must identify existential themes in
literary passages. The assessment will consist of students being given a number of
excerpts and will be asked to identify the prevalent existential themes of the text through
written responses. This will indicate the level of students’ preparedness to move on to the
next units where we will be examining complex existential literary works.
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Assignment 1c: Facebook Templates of the Enlightenment thinkers
Since this segment of the curriculum is designed to introduce students to the
beginnings of existential thought, it is imperative that they first understand what may
have caused this type of human thought—the Enlightenment period. Therefore, this
assignment is about researching some of the most prevalent philosophical thinkers of the
seventeenth and eighteenth centuries such as Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau, Wollstonecraft,
Newton, Diderot, and Galileo and identifying the emphasis that many of them placed on
the order of things. In order to make this assignment more relatable, students will be
provided with a familiar template that resembles the social networking site, Facebook, to
record their findings regarding the not so familiar philosophical platforms of several
Enlightenment thinkers. Students will be placed into groups and assigned a thinker. They
will also be given biographical information regarding their assigned thinker and will be
responsible for extracting the relevant information as prompted by the template. The
objective of this assignment is for students to research, comprehend and identify the
major components of these thinkers’ ideologies and record their new knowledge onto a
this Facebook template and then share their findings with the class. At the conclusion of
this assignment, students will have a deeper understanding of the Enlightenment thinkers
and will be able to identify the common thinking that occurred amongst them—the idea
26
that
Facebook.history
home search browse
invite help logout
hum
anity
could be placed into perfect order of things and logically assessed and understood.
Insert a photograph of the
Enlightenment thinker
here.
Gender:
Home State/Country:
Interested in: (e.g. Humanity? Logic?
Politics?)
Status Updates: (What
did they do?)
(Date:
(Date:
)
)
Events: (List two major
events in this thinker’s
lifetime that they were
involved in)
(E.g. War? Revolution?
Protests? Clubs?)
Philosophical Views: (Main Philosophical
Platform)
About Me: (List four most relevant
biographical facts)
27
Assignment 1d: Timeline—Seventeenth-Century through the Nineteenth-Century
In addition to the research aspects of the Enlightenment period, students will also
be responsible for identifying the main historical events from the seventeenth-century
though the nineteenth-century. Students will not be responsible for conducting in-depth
research of the events, but will be given a list of events along with a brief description that
they will have to place in order along the timeline. This will help students better
understand the events that transpired in the world over these several centuries. Since this
is not a history course, we will not spend a tremendous amount of time discussing each
and every detail of these events, but rather use this activity as an exercise to help
familiarize students with “major” world events. This timeline will be a wonderful
reference for students throughout the course and is designed to simply serve as such.
Students will focus their timelines on the relevant discoveries of the Enlightenment
thinkers discussed in the previous assignment, the world wars, the Industrial Revolution,
imperialist conquers of other countries and important rulers.
28
HISTORICAL TIMELINE
29
Unit Two: Fathers of Existentialism-Kierkegaard and Nietzsche
Section One: Kierkegaard-The Theistic Father of Existentialism
Time Frame: Five Ninety-minute Class Periods
Objective:
After completing this section, students will be able to identify and describe the
historical stage in which Kierkegaard wrote his works of existential thought. Students
will also be able to interpret the existential components of some of his written work and
criticize or defend his notions and understanding of the world. Students will be
responsible for making clear connections between Kierkegaard’s existential
understanding of the world and the nature of man’s relationship to the divine.
Overview:
As demonstrated in the previous section, the beginnings of “formal” existential
thought in the realm of the philosophers can be traced back to Kierkegaard’s response to
the enlightenment thinkers and the romantic notion that reason and nature were as one.
Along with this sentiment, was the belief that mankind could be calculated into that
perfectly arranged natural and reasonable world. The reliance placed upon empirical data
to explain why we are here was not enough for thinkers like Kierkegaard to feel satiated
and content. As a the realms of science, mathematics and medicine were rapidly
advancing, Kierkegaard noticed that mankind was relying more and more upon these
30
disciplines to ‘solve’ the mysteries of life and death. He witnessed the masses leaping
farther and farther into the arms of the logical, rational and empirically driven areas of
human thought. He spent the majority of his career in self sabotage so that he could
constantly make the “leap of faith” that he so famously composed in ‘Fear and
Trembling’. His philosophical interpretations of the world were generated by his life
experiences and his life experiences were in many ways prompted by his philosophical
understandings. He emphasized subjectivity of thought and regarded the objective view
of the world, as discussed intensely in the writings of Hegel, as one that merely consisted
of on-lookers and bi-standers. He convicted these members of the public of having no
true and real connection to the self or the divine. His response and way of thinking was in
many ways ill received by the masses and Kierkegaard was eventually written off as a
troubled soul who was far too focused on examining only one sliver of the human
experience. In the next two sections of this unit students will be able to evaluate how this
man was in many ways ahead of his time, noting that his existential experiences were
shared through “indirect communications” such as philosophical writings, stories,
pseudonyms and metaphors. Kierkegaard was an individual who expressed his disdain for
becoming a philosopher with a fixed doctrine; yet somehow he found himself intensely
focused on the notion that there was without doubt a vast disconnect between man and
himself. Without a connection to himself, man had no hope to sustain a connection with
God. In order for man to connect to himself and his world, he must find himself on the
cliff of humanity and recognize his own freedom to take the leap of faith into the arms of
the illogical, ethereal, and unexplainable realm of God. It is this leap that demands
31
mankind to recognize his freedom of choice, the reality of death, the sense of feeling
completely alone and beyond the scope or reach of the masses. This ‘cliff’ is where the
existential man is created according to Kierkegaard.
Summary:
Any century that finds itself in the aftermath of the French and American
revolutions, amongst the age of the Napoleonic Wars, and unknowingly becomes the
precursor to a century where electricity, the assembly line and the computer become the
norm, promises to provide a tremendous amount of existential fodder. As a resident of
Denmark in the early 19th early, Kierkegaard witnessed a tremendous amount of
industrial growth and a significant number of border shifts in Europe. There were a
significant number of major advancements made in the realms of science, mathematics
and medicine which in turn fueled mankind’s reliance upon the rational, explainable, and
logical realms to solve the mysteries of life. With an understanding of this historical
backdrop, students should be able to speculate what the motivations behind
Kierkegaard’s existential quest may have been. In the eyes of Kierkegaard, there are four
major elements that comprise the existential thinker along with three very distinct levels
of ascending human experience. Students will spend a significant amount of time
familiarizing themselves with the following four elements and levels of human thought.
Four Elements of the Existential Thinker:
1. The existential individual is in an infinite relationship with himself, and will have
infinite and continuous interest in himself and his own destiny.
32
2. The existential individual always feels himself to be in a transitional, everchanging experience of Becoming. One is not simply able to be something, but
must always be becoming something through sustained and constant effort.
3. The existential individual is always impassioned with a passionate thought and is
inspired to make attempts to capture the infinite within the confines of the finite.
4. The existential individual also contains within them the undeniable and pure
passion for freedom and the responsibility that comes with such freedom.
Assignments/Assessments:

Analysis of a quote from Kierkegaard’s Repetition

Story analysis and Venn diagram of the two different types of truths

Matrix Movie Clip Analysis
33
Assignment 2a: Text Analysis
In order to best prepare students for the in depth analysis of literature in the next
several units, it is imperative to first allow them to develop and refine the tools necessary
to analyze a text in order to extract a deeper meaning. Therefore, as an introduction to
how texts will be examined and analyzed throughout the duration of this course, this
particular assignment will prepare students to critically examine texts and analyze their
deeper meanings and implications. This exercise will serve as a measuring tool for the
instructor to gauge student levels of understanding of text analysis, existential
foundations, and will serve as an informal assessment of overall reading skills,
philosophical ability and existential knowledge. The assignment requires that students
examine a very short excerpt from one of Kierkegaard’s nineteenth century texts and
examine it for existential implications and metaphorical nuances. The guided reading
questions are designed to assist students in asking focused questions while reading and to
act as a foundation for classroom discussion about the relevance of self-awareness and
conscious questioning of life’s purpose.
34
Handout 2a: Textual Analysis of Kierkegaard’s Repetition
Read the following excerpt from Kierkegaard’s Repetition and answer the guided reading
questions below. Be aware of the use of metaphors and the overarching existential
themes throughout the passage. Also, be cognizant of the intensity in which the author
asks his questions.
One sticks one’s finger into the soil to tell by the smell in what land one is: I stick my finger into
existence—it smells of nothing. Where am I? Who am I? How came I here? What is this thing
called the world? What does the word mean? Who is it that has lured me into the thing, and now
leaves me there? …. How did I come into the world? Why was I not consulted, why not made
acquainted with its manners and customs but was thrust into the ranks as though I had been bought
of a “soul-seller”? How did I obtain an interest in this big enterprise they call reality? Why should
I have an interest in it? Is it not voluntary concern? And if I am compelled to take part in it, where
is the director?i
Guided Reading Questions:
1. What does the author mean by sticking one’s finger “into existence”?
2. What is the implication of existence smelling like nothing?
3. Which questions resonated the most with you as you were reading? Why?
4. Which of these questions, if any, did you directly or indirectly ask and answer
when preparing your oral presentation for the previous unit?
5. What existential ideas can be extracted from this passage? Define and explain
how you know them to be existential in nature.
6. Do you ever find yourself asking similar questions to these? If so, Who do you
ask them to? Do you think that this type of questioning is a rational examination
of life, or is it absurd to think this way? Why or why not?
35
Assignment 2b: Subjective and Objective Truths
In Nathan Scott’s text, Mirrors of Man in Existentialism, there resides a story
about a graduate student who is confronted with two very different types of truth and who
exemplifies the critical differences between the enlightened thinker and the existential
thinker. The student is experiencing what Kierkegaard classified as subjective truth,
while also experiencing what is commonly referred to as objective truth. This assignment
is designed to demonstrate to students the incredible value that many existential thinkers
placed upon subjective thinking and to help students differentiate what is meant by
logical and calculable truths and what is meant by internal and unexplainable truths. After
all, this dichotomy is the birth of existentialism. After reading this passage, students will
compare and contrast the two types of truths illustrated in this story by using a Venn
diagram template and write a one-page reflection in response to the writing prompt
provided.
36
Handout 2b: Subjective Versus Objective Truth
Read pages 10 & 11 in Doctor Scott’s text, Mirrors of Man in Existentialism, and
respond to the prompts below.
Objective Truth
Subjective Truth
1. Using the Venn diagram template above, list the similarities and differences
between the two types of truths exemplified in this story.
2. Are there many similarities between these two truths? If so, what are they?
3. What makes both of these two types of truths valuable to the experience of
humanity?
Writing Prompt:
Write a reflection that describes how you have experienced these two types of truths in
your own life experiences. Which type of truth do you find more important or relevant in
your own life? Why?
37
Assignment 2c: Movie Clip Analyses of the Matrix
This assignment provides students with an opportunity to take their new
knowledge of Kierkegaard’s leap of faith and existential decision making and use it to
assess and evaluate the two situations viewed in the clips of The Matrix. In the first clip,
students will evaluate the discussion between Neo and Morpheus and determine how it
encompasses the conscious decision man can make in order to transcend into a life where
one questions their own reality and makes attempts to understand the complexities of
why they exist. This clip will assist students in making clear connections between
Kierkegaard’s aesthetic realm and the matrix as well as emphasize the intensity of
making the choice to become conscious.
The second clip that students will view is a brief, one-minute clip that actualizes
the leap of faith that Neo attempts to make. It is simply a visual manifestation of a
physical leap of faith and should provide students will another way of interpreting
Kierkegaard’s leap of faith. This clip will facilitate a group discussion regarding the
realities of making such a leap and what it means to fail and not successfully land on the
other side. These clips are simply meant to help students fully develop a keen sense of the
existential ideas presented in Kierkegaard’s texts and further solidify the foundation of
existential thought for students. By providing visuals, students will be able to access the
information via multiple modalities, thereby increasing the likelihood that the
information will connect to students.
38
Handout 2c: Analyses of The Matrix (Two movie clips)
The Red Pill or the Blue Pill?
1. What does Morpheus say that Neo has the look of? How is this sentiment related
to Kierkegaard’s notion of the self-examined life?
2. Why does Morpheus ask about believing in fate? Why is this relevant?
3. What is the difference between knowing and feeling that the world is in someway
different?
4. What is the Matrix?
5. How does this discussion relate to the notions of objective and subjective truths?
6. What do the red pill and the blue pill represent? What would you choose?
The Leap of Faith
1. What does Morpheus tell Neo he has to let go of? How does this relate to
Kierkegaard’s ideologies?
2. Why is Morpheus able to complete the jump and Neo is not?
3. What sort of attitude doe Neo have towards the act of jumping?
4. Does this attitude help or hurt his chance of success? Why?
5. What do the people watching this jump program think about the possibility of him
accomplishing the jump on the first try?
6. Is Neo successful in the jump? Why or why not? What does Kierkegaard say is
necessary to have in order to make the leap?
39
Unit Two: Fathers of Existentialism-Kierkegaard and Nietzsche
Section Two: Nietzsche—“God is Dead.”
Time Frame: Five Ninety-Minute Class Periods
Objective:
At the conclusion of this section, students will be able to define and evaluate
Nietzsche’s existential view of the world. Students will evaluate what is meant by the
term absolute freedom and humanity’s inescapable responsibility to such freedom.
Students will also be able to compare and contrast the differences and similarities
between the thoughts and philosophical values of Kierkegaard and Nietzsche, paying
close attention to the relevance that faith and religion have in their ideologies.
Overview:
As a German philosopher of the late nineteenth-century, Nietzsche lived during the
height of the industrial revolution and was able to examine the world through a lens that
saw a great shift in the way humanity worked and lived. As this century unfolded, more
and more men, women and children found their place as cogs in the machine of the
industrial machine. In many ways, Nietzsche saw a very similar world to that of
Kierkegaard and students should be cognizant of making this historical connection.
However, as the previous section illustrated, Kierkegaard maintained a critical connection
to the importance of faith and the role of God when approaching the existential dilemma.
This was not the case for the German philosopher. According to Nietzsche, “God is
Dead” and we are the ones who ‘killed’ him. This quote is one of his most famous and
most meaningful when summing up his over-arching existential philosophy. A significant
40
portion of this section will be spent a discovering, discussing and examining what this
idea of God’s death means to the philosopher, the existentialist, and the way in which one
perceives the world. Students will read a number of excerpts from Nietzsche’s text The
Gay Science in order to better extract this sense of absolute freedom and responsibility
that Nietzsche emphasizes. Student will be responsible for answering the following
questions:
1. What is meant by the phrase “God is dead”?
2. How can God be killed? What do you think Nietzsche meant by this notion that we
are responsible for it?
3. Do you think that this era and/or century had any influence upon how Nietzsche
came to this conclusion that God has perished? If so, what would that influence have
been?
4. What role do you think religion played in his thought process? Does he sound like
an atheist?
5. In what ways do Nietzsche and Kierkegaard share similar ideologies? In what way
are they different?
When students are discussing this deep and probing questions, the important realizations
that need to be made must relate to the notion that mankind’s obsession with answers,
science, rationality, logic, mathematics and explanations are what inevitably diminished
God’s relevance, God’s mystery and His unquestionable authority. It was Nietzsche’s
41
belief that with our loss of faith and increasing dependence on the new reality of modern
thought that we now took God’s responsibility out of the equation and replaced it with
our own. Without God, humanity now became completely free and absolutely responsible
for its existence. Fate and destiny became impossible, and mankind was faced with the
reality that the new set of values and ethical doctrines for humanity would have to be
created by humanity itself. This also implied that suffering was self imposed and he saw
that existence without God in many ways demanded that humanity say yes to a world of
suffering and still make that leap of faith that Kierkegaard so graciously illustrated. Yet
this leap would not be a leap into the arms of God, but rather into nothingness. The
willingness to accept this and still take that leap is what introduces the notion of absurdity
in the existential realm. This scenario begs the question that if one knows that making
this leap could cost an individual everything and gain this illusion of nothingness, why
would anyone choose to take this path? This brings the discussion full circle and back to
the absolute freedom to choose and the swelling amount of responsibility that man has to
choose wisely.
Summary:
There are a few themes that students should be able to extract from their readings
of Nietzsche’s texts in this section. From The Gay Science, students should be able to
identify and evaluate how God’s “death” affected the modern world. These excerpts
should illustrate for students the incredible weight and burden that absolute freedom and
choice place on humanity. This theme is extremely prevalent in existential literature and
this introduction should prepare students well for deeper examinations of this freedom as
42
seen in the next several units. In addition, the excerpts and discussions surrounding Thus
Spoke Zarathustra will also illustrate for students the incredible power that the will of
mankind has when it comes to saying yes to that leap into nothingness and humankind’s
daily existence in a world that is absolutely absurd.
Assignments:

Compare/Contrast Kierkegaard & Nietzsche

Define, Explain and Illustrate each of the main themes in existential writings.
Assessments:
The formal assessment of this section will be students’ definitions and
explanations of existential themes and the analysis of the movie clip. These two
assessment tools will allow the instructor to determine whether or not students really
understand the anguish of absolute choice and freedom; and it will also be clear as to
whether or no students were able to extract the prevalent themes in existentialism during
the examination of philosophical texts.
43
Assignment 2d: Comparing and Contrasting Nietzsche and Kierkegaard
Since Kierkegaard and Nietzsche are often referred to as the first thinkers in the
chain of existential thought it serves great purpose for students to see how they are the
same and how they differ. One of the most prevalent distinctions is that Nietzsche’s
philosophical ideas do not lie upon a deity or faith, but rather are founded upon man’s
ability to accept nothingness and a life that may very well be founded on a sense of
meaninglessness. Students will use the following handout to record their findings
regarding the main components of both philosophers’ existential thoughts and then
summarize how the two thinkers differ and relate to one another. This assignment will
solidify students’ foundational knowledge regarding the first existential thinkers and
prepare them to move on to further detecting existential thoughts and themes in the
literature of the next several units.
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Handout 2d: Comparing the Fathers of Existentialism
On one side of the table, write down a minimum of five different main ideas of each
philosopher’s ideologies and briefly describe their relevance to existential thought. In the
bottom square, summarize what these two philosophers’ ideologies have in common and
or differences when it comes to the point of human existence.
SOREN KIERKEGAARD
SUMMARY:
FREDRICH NIETZSCHE
45
Assignment 2e: Identifying Existentialism in Nietzsche’s Writing
Students will continue to learn how to identify existential themes in literature by
reading and analyzing an excerpt from Nietzsche’s Gay Science. This assignment is
intended to help exemplify the notion that we are living in a world of absurdity that is in
no way comprehensible through this newly found scientific and rational world and that in
effect, we as society have killed God. This “murder” has in fact deemed us entirely
responsible for our own existence and with that responsibility comes great anxiety and a
massive amount of responsibility to derive our own meaning from a completely
meaningless world. Students will read the excerpt, answer the questions that follow and
then engage in a group discussion regarding their findings. This will hopefully ignite an
in depth discussion regarding the importance and relevance of God’s presence and the
intense amount of responsibility that individuals have when it comes to the meaning of
life.
46
Handout 2e: Excerpt from The Gay Science
125
The Madman. Have you ever heard of the madman who on a bright morning lighted a
lantern and ran to the marketplace calling out unceasingly: "I seek God! I seek God!" As
there were many people standing about who did not believe in God, he caused a great
deal of amusement. Why? is he lost? said one. Has he strayed away like a child? said
another. Or does he keep himself hidden? Is he afraid of us? Has he taken a sea voyage?
Has he emigrated? - the people cried out laughingly, all in a hubbub. The insane man
jumped into their midst and transfixed them with his glances. "Where is God gone?" he
called out. "I mean to tell you! We have killed him, you and I! We are all his murderers!
But how have we done it? How were we able to drink up the sea? Who gave us the
sponge to wipe away the whole horizon? What did we do when we loosened this earth
from its sun? Whither does it now move? Whither do we move? Away from all suns? Do
we not dash on unceasingly? Backwards, sideways, forwards, in all directions? Is there
still an above and below? Do we not stray, as through infinite nothingness? Does not
empty space breathe upon us? Has it not become colder? Does not night come on
continually, darker and darker? Shall we not have to light lanterns in the morning? Do we
not hear the noise of the gravediggers who are burying God? Do we not smell the divine
putrefaction? - for even Gods putrefy! God is dead! God remains dead! And we have
killed him! How shall we console ourselves, the most murderous of all murderers? The
holiest and the mightiest that the world has hitherto possessed, has bled to death under
our knife - who will wipe the blood from us? With what water could we cleanse
ourselves? What lustrums, what sacred games shall we have to devise? Is not the
magnitude of this deed too great for us? Shall we not ourselves have to become Gods,
merely to seem worthy of it? There never was a greater event - and on account of it, all
who are born after us belong to a higher history than any history hitherto!" Here the
madman was silent and looked again at his hearers; they also were silent and looked at
him in surprise. At last he threw his lantern on the ground, so that it broke in pieces and
was extinguished. "I come too early," he then said. "I am not yet at the right time. This
prodigious event is still on its way, and is traveling - it has not yet reached men's ears.
Lightning and thunder need time, the light of the stars needs time, deeds need time, even
after they are done, to be seen and heard. This deed is as yet further from them than the
furthest star - and yet they have done it themselves!" It is further stated that the madman
made his way into different churches on the same day, and there intoned his Requiem
aeternam deo. When led out and called to account, he always gave the reply: "What are
these churches now, if they are not the tombs and monuments of God?" ii
Questions:
1. What does the madman mean when he says “God is Dead! And we have killed him!”?
2. What existential themes are present in this text?
3. Does this text insinuate that Nietzsche was an atheist? Why or why not?
4. What does the madman mean about coming too early and not at the right time?
47
Unit Three: Dostoyevsky and Notes from Underground
Section Title: Dostoevsky’s Nineteenth-Century Russia
Time Frame: Two ninety-minute class periods
Objective:
This is the first of four units where students are asked to focus on an author’s life
and then read, analyze, and critically examine a literary piece that they have created. This
unit, in addition to the next three, is divided into two different sections. This first section
is a brief biographical examination of the author’s life and his place in history. The
second section will require that students read a piece of literature written by that author
and analyze how it demonstrates a real connection to existential thought. The purpose
behind this organization is so that students can first examine the factual realities of the
authors in the objective world which will ultimately build a foundation that will better
prepare students to examine the authors’ subjective worlds as illustrated in their texts.
Students will begin this next unit with an examination of the Russian writer,
Fyodor Dostoevsky. It is expected that this unit will provide students with a strong
fundamental understanding of nineteenth-century Russia, and major events during
Dostoevsky’s life prior to the writing of Notes from Underground. Students will be able
to identify experiences that may have influenced his writing and evaluate how these
experiences may have provided fodder for the writing of his existential text Notes from
Underground.
48
Overview:
Russia in the Nineteenth-Century:
Czar Nicolas I was in power during Dostoyevsky’s life and promoted a political
climate that repressed Russian society. The implementation of a secret police, an
interconnected web of spies throughout the communities and strict censorship were only
a few characteristics of the tyrannical monarchy that the Russian people experienced and
endured. Students will examine what the Czarist rule could mean for writers and
revolutionaries alike. It is reasonable to say that a man’s character is ultimately
influenced by the early years of his life, as well as the political and societal context of his
own life. This was no different when discussing the life of Fyodor Dostoyevsky and
much can be said about how his writings may have been affected by the time in which he
lived. Whether or not he was interested in a bloody revolution to overthrow the
controlling Czarist regime, or more passively accepting of the socio-political climate of
his time is not necessarily relevant to students’ understanding of existential themes in his
literature. However, the presence of an internal revolution of subjective thoughts and
spiritual realities as demonstrated in Notes from Underground is relevant. The presence
of alienation and revolution against the laws of nature as experienced by the
Underground Man is enough to inspire a deeper self-examination in his readers and
promote consciousness of the soul. Students will be afforded the opportunity to make
connections between the Russia that Dostoevsky lived through and how this may have
influenced his perceptions of humanity, of life and how it may have instigated the
questions he had regarding his own experiences of reality. A brief discussion about the
49
political and historical climate of Russia during the nineteenth-century will simply
instigate a classroom discussion where students are able to discuss the relevance, or
irrelevance, of the times one lives in when it comes to the subjective existential
experiences one has of the world. During this discussion the instructor should ask
students if they think that they would feel differently about the meaning of their own life
if they lived in Europe, or if they lived in another time in history. Would they feel the
same levels of anxiety about their existence if our military were weaker? If our president
were a dictator? Would they feel the same way about death if they lived in a time where
there was no such thing as religion? Would life seem as absurd if the lived in a small
community of tribes and lived primitively? The instructor should also ask them to
defend their positions and explain why and how the times in which an individual lives
can influence their experiences of the world around them.
Summary:
First and foremost, instructors should be cautious about incorporating a historical
introduction of an author into the literary units of their curriculum. With such
introductions, students will tend to want to read into the texts as an autobiographical
account of an author’s life or of their times. It should be stressed when discussing the
major events of any author’s life that this should be viewed as the subjective realities that
an author has lived through and in essence has provided them with inspiration and
wisdom within that context. This is an important distinction to make with students. The
events are responsible for creating a subjective truth for the authors, which are indirectly
50
communicated through literary pieces in order to capture the existential essence of their
lives.
Students will be better prepared to understand the moments of conflict, isolation,
love, loss, alienation, absurdity, and life’s limits through their examination of the context
of Dostoyevsky’s life. The censorship and controlling leadership, the religious vein
running through the Russian people, and the rapid industrial growth of the surrounding
world are all general realities of Dostoyevsky’s nineteenth-century Russia. Students must
determine whether these experiencesshaped Dostoyevsky’s subjective reality to create
truths of his own, which can be seen so vividly throughout his text.
Assignments/Assessments:

Timeline of Nineteenth-century Russia

Writing Prompt: What would you think and feel about life if you had experienced
these same things?
51
Assignment 3a: Timeline Activity
For a majority of the units, students will create a timeline that contains some of the major
life events of each author. The purpose of this timeline is to provide students with a way
to visualize and organize the place in history that the author lived through and to
reference the key aspects of their lives as it pertains to the existential texts that they
create. Timelines are an excellent introductory activity for students to utilize in order to
generate a foundational understanding of a new or unfamiliar topic. More specifically, it
also affords them the opportunity to solidify their knowledge of an author in order to
better understand the possible correlation between major events in the lives of authors
and the themes of existentialism in their texts.
52
TIMELINE OF NINETEENTH-CENTURY RUSSIA
53
Assignment 3b:
Students will engage in a twenty-minute free-write experience where they are
asked how they would respond to some of the major life experiences of Dostoyevsky had
they occurred in their own lives. They will be asked to imagine themselves in a jail cell,
awaiting their own execution and what that might be like for them. What subjective
realities would they create for themselves? They will also be asked to think about how
they would handle the moment in which they are steps away from their execution only to
be pardoned of it and then forced to serve in the military in exile. Students will ponder
what they may see as important and relevant in this sort of life. They will be discussing
their own perceptions and subjective truths, which will help to solidify the importance of
self-examination. Many students will express subjective interpretations of death, some
will express the amount of anxiety and fear that they would feel, whereas others may
have little connection to these experiences because they seems too distant and too
abstract. This exercise will allow students to experience a few moments of the alienated
individual and the anxiety that life and death can create for a person living in this place of
exile, fear and uncertainty.
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Handout 3b: Writing Prompt
Imagine for a moment that you too have experienced a life where you are surrounded by
people who suffer and that you are completely alone in the world without parents to help
guide your way. Imagine that you are trying to promote some intense political and
societal belief and are arrested for being affiliated with the wrong people at the wrong
time. Then your impending death awaits you and at the last moment, as you are steps
away from the firing squad, you are no longer condemned to death, but rather condemned
to exile and isolation. What do you think along the way? What sort of things are you
experiencing? What do you feel? What do you do? How do you cope? For the next
twenty minutes, write down how you would manage this life and how you maneuver
through these intense experiences.
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Unit Three: Dostoyevsky and Notes from Underground
Section Two: Theme of Alienation in Dostoevsky’s Notes from Underground
Time Frame: Seven ninety-minute class periods
Objective:
Students will be able to detect, assess and analyze the over-arching theme of
alienation and isolation in Dostoyevsky’s Notes from Underground. Students will also
draw on their knowledge of nineteenth century Russia and the biographical account of
Dostoyevsky’s life to make connections between the text and his experiences. It is crucial
to note that this text is not to be considered an autobiographical story of Dostoyevsky’s
life, but students should recall the notion of “indirect communication” mentioned in the
introductory unit of this curriculum and how this piece of literature conveys the
subjective realities of the author’s life. As a piece of existential literature, Notes from
Underground does indeed indirectly communicate the subjective experience of the
existential theme of alienation and isolation, which was indeed something that
Dostoyevsky had experienced a tremendous amount of, both objectively in prison, and
subjectively in love. Students will evaluate the characters and what they symbolize in
relationship to the underground man. Furthermore, students will focus on the main
character and his interactions with the world and extract, discuss, and analyze the realities
of isolation and alienation.
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Overview:
Meeting the Underground Man
This first portion of the unit will be dedicated to students getting to know the
‘Underground Man’ and who he is. This character is methodically introduced in the first
of two chapters in the text and within the first few sentences, Dostoyevsky introduces and
forms a character comprised of a whirlwind of ideas, anxieties, insecurities, and
judgments. In the beginning of their study of this text, students may wonder where this
text is going and what to make of the character and the author’s intentions. It is crucial
that students spend time digging into the text and become acutely aware of the
metaphorical language in which the main character is speaking. Getting to know the
Underground Man is extraordinarily challenging for readers as he seems distracted,
intense and without direction. In addition to these qualities, he is never officially
introduced by name or setting. Students will be required to derive meaning from the
cryptic gibberish that he seems to speak and should be able to identify the way he views
the isolation in which he lives, the meaninglessness of life, the intensity of self
awareness, the limitations of humanity when faced with the walls of the laws of nature,
logic and calculations and that man will act in conflict to his own best interests if it
means that he is preserving his right to desire and the precious freedom to choose.
Existential Themes of Alienation and Isolation:
It should not surprise students that Dostoyevsky would write a text in which a
man has lived underground for years. This text in many ways represents the subjective
realities that existed for Dostoyevsky during his prison sentence and military exile. This
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theme of isolation and alienation is extremely prevalent and raw throughout the entire
text; and it is crucial that students are able to recognize the underground man’s struggle
with both the desire to merge into the flow of humanity and his simultaneous internal,
and sometimes external, anger with the objective realities of life and its commonly
accepted limitations. The following existential realities of the underground man are the
most prevalent and will be discussed and analyzed throughout this unit.
There are a number of instances where Dostoyevsky makes it clear that
humanity’s reliance upon the laws of nature and calculable interpretations is muddling up
their ability to comprehend the depths reality. He is plagued with the notion that in order
to access the flesh of life that one must attain true self-consciousness and with that comes
the anxieties of alienation, insecurities and the duality of simultaneously feeling beneath
and above humanity. This way of thinking is very clearly illustrated in the first lines of
the text as his introduces the character as a man who spitefully refuses medical assistance
for the liver pain he is experiencing. It tells the readers that this character is one who
would rather live in the throws of suffering and pain than to submit and become a slave to
the logical, medical ailments that take man out of his misery. It is through suffering that
man can access the realities beyond what Dostoyevsky perceives as the impossible wall
that the laws of nature build in the minds of the enlightened man. This notion is intensely
developed in the first chapter of the text through as he writes about the ultimate pleasure
that can be found in despair. The man who experiences a toothache can derive pleasure in
moaning and annoying those around him even though it in no way diminishes the amount
of pain he is suffering from. Along these same lines, the existential theme of the agony of
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freedom also shows up here as he reminds us that one cannot blame the laws of nature for
the pain and suffering of the toothache. The laws of nature therefore cannot provide man
with any form of comfort or true ailment for their suffering, which in turn should
illustrate to us as the reader that the realities which we can be explained away by nature
do not in fact encompass the subjective realities that we experience. This is the heart of
what Dostoyevsky is illustrating for his readers and the underground man represents the
alienated, suffering, insecure, existential man that exists on the other side of that wall of
reason.
In the second section of the text, the readers are exposed to a completely different
side of alienation. The first section was an isolated man’s stream of consciousness and his
reflections on pedantic societal behaviors. The second section of the text illustrates the
realities and loneliness of the underground man’s alienation in respect to other people.
The moments of vanity, revenge, humiliation, jealousy and fantasy illustrated in this
portion of the text illustrates the intense price one pays for traveling beyond that scope of
the “wall” that the laws of nature have built for the enlightened man. The interactions
during the dinner with friends, demonstrated the rage and suffering one might feel when
isolated and alienated or misunderstood. The vane obsession with appearing ‘best and
highest’, especially during the interactions with the prostitute, generates an intense
anxiety that cannot be controlled. Furthermore, the underground man’s alienated
experiences in a world that includes other people illustrates the intense loneliness that
comes when one feels completely and utterly alone even when in the presence of others.
The existential dilemma that is generated in this story is that man has the absolute
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freedom to make the choice to move beyond the confines of the laws of nature and not
settle for their perfectly assorted answers and calculable rationales, but it shall come at
the price of loneliness and alienation. With this absolute freedom to choose, does man
choose to become completely conscious, awake and alone or does he simply choose to
stop at the foot of that wall of the laws of nature and submit to it and declare that moving
beyond it is an impossibility and that he is simply a part of the perfectly constructed web
of reason, logic and nature.
Summary:
After students conclude their reading of Notes from Underground, reflect upon
the text in their journals and participate in a number of seminar based class periods it
should be evident that this text can certainly be considered a precursor to the wave of
existential thought that officially came to fruition nearly a century later. As one of the
earliest existential novels, Dostoyevsky was able to illustrate not only the importance of
challenging the rational and logical, but made it seem imperative for man to break free of
those confines so that he maintained the most important component of humanity even if it
meant alienation, despair and suffering. For him, this was a small price to pay in order to
maintain his separation from a perfectly organized world. Mankind could ultimately
preserve the one thing that made him better and higher than all other things—freedom.
Assignments/Assessments:

Character Analysis Worksheet: Alienation and the Underground

Analysis of the closing paragraph
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Assignment 3c: Character Analysis and Author Analysis
Students will analyze and assess the main characters of the text and discuss how
each of these characters enhance and/or reflect the Underground Man’s sense of
alienation. The purpose of this exercise is to help students to closely examine the text and
evaluate the characters and their relationship to the protagonist. These relationships are
what help to define the Underground Man and to illustrate to the reader the realities that
he experiences. As the first formal character analysis of the curriculum, students will
need to be guided through this exercise and therefore cooperative groups will be the best
approach. For each group of six, students will be given different characters to assess and
will then discuss their responses collectively. Students will assess the following
characters: The Underground Man, Officer, Simonov, Zverkov, Liza, and Apollon,
In addition to analyzing characters, students will also be responsible for linking
previous knowledge of the author’s life and the story content. Students should be able to
make the connection that every individual is only capable of writing or discussing that
which they can subjectively experience in reality, fantasy or both. Students must be able
to connect the components of the text that resemble some known experiences of the
author’s life and distinguish how well they correlate to one another. The instructor must
be sure to remind students that this does not mean interpreting the text as an
autobiography but rather an opportunity to identify the connection between the author’s
subjective reality and the text.
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Handout 3c: Character & Author Analyses: Notes From Underground
Character's Name
1. Is the character static or dynamic? How do you know?
2. Describe the character
3. What parts of the story provide the deepest understanding of this character?
4. In what ways is the character influenced by his/her surroundings?
5. How is this character's society or reality different than yours?
6. How does the character respond to other characters?
(Especially the Underground Man)
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7. Is the character self-aware? Do they know how others view them?
8. How does the character view themself? What is their existence like?
9. Do you think this person’s behavior is normal and acceptable based on society’s
standards today? Why or why not?
10. In what ways did this character help to enhance the theme of alienation? (*Think
about how they related to the Underground Man)
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Author Analysis:
1. Based upon what you know about the author and the content of the story, what type of
person is the author?
2. What major influences do you think caused the author to write in this way?
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Unit Four: Franz Kafka and The Metamorphosis
Section One: Franz Kafka and the Twentieth Century—Biographical Introduction
Time Frame: Three ninety-minute class periods
Objective:
The over-arching goal of this introduction to the era in which Kafka lived is to
again provide students with some historical background of the novelist and to help them
better understand the context in which texts like The Metamorphosis and “The Hunger
Artist” were written. At the conclusion of this unit, students will be able to identify the
major historical events during Kafka’s life and will construct a timeline representing this
era. Students will also be able to identify and recognize the incredible influence that the
First World War had upon the literature of the early twentieth century and the sense of
disillusionment that followed those years of violence.
Overview:
Prior to World War One, the world was bursting at the seams with industrialized
cities, plentiful resources acquired during the imperial age, and a whole new approach to
work, life and war. The Great War is one that ultimately affected the world forever,
especially in the realms of art and literature. People witnessed a sense of violence and
destruction like they had never seen or felt before. The weaponry was stronger, the
chemicals were torturous and the young men on the front lines came home mangled,
debilitated, emotionally numb, or simply did not come home at all. As a reaction to this,
the art and literary world sought refuge in the new movement of surrealism where they
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were free to allow the thoughts and feelings of the dream world to seep into reality. This
sense of disillusionment with pre war institutions was so vivid and clear through these
fantasy pieces. With that said, the “Lost Generation” of American writers were joining
the literary fight against pre-war institutions and they too contributed a sense of cynicism,
disbelief and the desire to find themselves while traveling the European countries.
Although Kafka was not considered one of the lost generation writers, he certainly was a
man who could write about the subjective, dream-like, fantasy world in which he lived.
One of the most incredible components of Kafka’s life was the time in which he lived and
the fact that his writings straddled the pre and post war worlds. His adult life and literary
career contained elements of the Marxist anti-capitalist world as well as the
disillusionment of the post World War and its contemporaries. His texts ultimately
illustrate illusions of fantasy within the confines of reality. The bizarre characters of
mice, insects, hunger artists, panthers, et cetera, provide elements of fantasy and dreams
while simultaneously demanding that the reader be fully present in reality’s elements of
limits, boundaries, disgust, hardship and despair. It is the presence of these two elements,
reality and fantasy, and the presence of isolation and despair in The Metamorphosis that
make it clear that Kafka was indeed an existential thinker. Students must be able to
reflect on the world in which surrounded Kafka and again inquire whether this post war
world influenced his writing and his clear existential themes of alienation, anxiety and
despair.
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Summary:
Understanding the historical background of Kafka’s life is not imperative to
interpreting his texts, but it is indeed an additional lens with which students can use to
further examine his metaphorical, fantastical and surreal texts. A foundational
understanding of Kafka’s time in history assists students in better understanding the
realities that he was immersed in and the tremendous amount of isolation that he himself
had unarguably experienced. This section should also direct students’ attention to the vast
differences during the First World War as well as the world both before and after the
Great War. In conjunction, the instructor should be certain to emphasize to students the
importance of the growth of industrialization and the emphasis placed on work and labor,
the realities of advanced warfare during the Great War and the sense of devastation and
disillusionment that humanity felt with regards to pre war institutions. The historical
examination on a larger, macroscopic scale will indeed help students to better understand
the possible influences on Kafka’s work, which then in turn help to decode some of the
cryptic metaphors in Kafka’s texts.
Activities/Assessments:

Kafka Jeopardy!

Kafka Timeline
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Assignment 4a: Timeline of Franz Kafka
For a majority of the units, students will create a timeline that contains some of the major
historical events of each author’s life. The purpose of this timeline is to provide students
with a way to visualize and organize the place in history that the author lived through and
to reference the key aspects of their lives as it pertains to the existential texts that they
create. Timelines are an excellent introductory activity for students to utilize in order to
generate a foundational understanding of a new or unfamiliar topic. More specifically, it
also affords them the opportunity to solidify their knowledge of an author in order to
better understand the possible correlation between historical events in the author’s life
and the themes of existentialism in their texts.
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FRANZ KAFKA TIMELINE
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Assignment 4b: Franz Kafka and the Twentieth-Century—Jeopardy!
The objective of this activity is for students to solidify a working knowledge of
Kafka’s life through participating in a familiar game of Jeopardy! Instructors should
create a Jeopardy game via http://jeopardylabs.com that contains questions regarding
Kafka’s upbringing and writing career.
For this activity students will be placed into groups of four and given a small
white board and a dry erase marker. The instructor will place the game on the projector
and a group will call the dollar amount and category out. The instructor will read the
question and student groups will have 10 seconds to write down their answers. At the end
of ten seconds they will be prompted to show their white boards; and those who have the
right answer will receive the “money”. This will continue for the duration of the game
and the team who has the most money at the end, wins. This is a fun, challenging and
interactive way to help students become more familiar with the biographical account of
Franz Kafka and the era within which he lived, wrote, and died.
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Unit Four: Franz Kafka and The Metamorphosis
Section Two: Existential Themes of The Metamorphosis
Time Frame: Six ninety-minute class periods
Objective:
This section of the unit is designed to help students identify, assess, evaluate,
contemplate and analyze the realities of alienation, isolation, and despair as depicted in
the Metamorphosis. These existential themes are prominent throughout the text and as
students analyze this text, they will better understand how these notions of solitude and
isolation contribute to the existential dilemma. Students will see the realities that man
faces when peering out at a world that is carrying on around him, seemingly to ignoring
him, while he continuously bumps up against the overwhelming anxiety and boundaries
that reality creates.
Overview:
Meeting Gregor Samsa:
One of the most important components of this text is the way in which Kafka
introduces the protagonist of this short story. The reader is immediately thrown into the
anxiety of this man, Gregor Samsa, who upon wakening, immediately discovers that he is
a giant insect. This immediate literary “leap” into the awakening of Gregor Samsa is in
many ways the same fashion in which the existential man enters the world. He wakes one
day trapped in the same confines of reality, with the same fixtures surrounding him, only
to find out that he himself has drastically changed. He has become something that one
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may detest, something that seems so absurd that he no longer can connect with the
normal things in his life, including family, work, eating, moving, sleeping et cetera and
something so alienated that he may find himself simply longing to once again be a part of
the human experience. This can be detected within the first several paragraphs as the
reader comes to learn that our main character was once indeed a man who was
overworked and lacked connections to others, only to wake up one morning and become
an insect that works tirelessly to get out of bed only concerned with his timely arrival to
the train station for work. Within the first few pages, readers begin to see his
overwhelming concern with work and his almost lackadaisical attitude about his
outrageous transformation. It is key to ask students at this point what they would think,
do or feel if they woke up one morning only to find themselves to now be a giant bug.
Would they worry incessantly about work or school? Or would they concern themselves
with the absurdity of the transformation itself? This question should generate a discussion
with students that will bring a number of important realizations. The first of these
realizations is that the existential man can find himself in an alternate reality when his
awareness of his own alienation and loneliness occurs. In addition to this, students should
also make note of the way in which the author makes no mention of the character’s
anxiety of becoming a bug, but rather only his anxiety of being late for work. The
instructor should be asking students about what this tells us about the character’s focus
and what is it about Gregor’s focus that seems odd or off putting. These questions should
generate a serious discussion about the underlying message that Kafka seems to be
sharing with his audience about the anxiety of work, the absurdity of how important it has
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become to humanity, and the transformation that happens to us when we begin to
recognize the alienation that we feel from humanity.
Character Analysis:
In order for students to better understand and identify existential themes in The
Metamorphosis, they must first get analyze the characters of this story other than Gregor
Samsa himself. Mr. Samsa and Mrs. Samsa are the parents of Gregor and Grete is his
sister. In addition to his immediate family, there are several different housemaids, three to
be exact, as well as three travelers. Last but not least there is also Mr. Manager, Gregor’s
boss. Each one of these characters represents some important component of Gregor’s life.
Grete: Grete is Gregor’s young sister. She is sweet and passionate about the violin. She
first has compassion for her brother, then becomes his caretaker, and eventually begins to
take away the only constants, i.e. furniture, in his small reality. She inevitably becomes
the antithesis to his existence and castes him away and replaces him as the family’s
protector and condemns his entire existence. She vocalizes her belief that if he truly loved
his family, he would have disappeared on his own in order to relieve them of their
suffering and grief.
Mrs. Samsa: Gregor’s mother. She is faint of heart and has tremendous trouble breathing.
She is also saddened by the transformation of her son and in many ways cannot face the
fate that has befallen her son. She is shielded by her daughter and terrified of the realities
that have taken over Gregor’s existence. Yet, as the story continues and Gregor struggles,
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her health seems to be improving and she takes up sewing and becomes a stronger pillar
of the family. However, she still faints when she is confronted with the reality of what her
son is.
Mr. Samsa: Gregor’s father. He is hard-fisted and reliant upon Gregor for finances after
his business fails many years before the story takes place. He spends the majority of his
time simply wasting away around the house reading newspapers and never amounting to
much day-to-day. However, after Gregor is transformed, Mr. Samsa returns to work and
becomes the pillar of the family again, which pushes Gregor further from the picture of
being necessary or relevant.
Existential Themes of Alienation and Despair:
Throughout this text there are a number of existential themes that pull the reader
into the realms of the absurd, the alienated, and the isolated. Similar to other existential
authors, it is through indirect communication that Kafka lures his readers deeper into the
rabbit hole of inquiry only to discover that they are experiencing the pangs of anxiety and
despair that the characters themselves are immersed in. The relationship that Gregor has
to his work and the sacrifices he makes on behalf of the company are repaid through low
wages, and under-appreciation. The financial responsibility that he has to his family and
the anxiety that this causes for him is also clear. Furthermore, the absolute lack of
connection and concern for himself is after all the most absurd. The isolation he feels
from himself is almost more intense to witness than the isolation and alienation he feels
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from his family. He cannot accept who he is, he is merely concerned with their reactions
and their sorrows and offers the readers little, if any, self-reflection. This absolute
disconnect and alienation from reality is further developed as Gregor looks upon his
family while they go about living their lives, only to shift from having compassion for
him, to resenting his current condition, and then from trying to change his experience of
reality to dismissing him all together. The way in which the characters of Gregor’s family
dance around him in this text illustrates with incredible finesse the process in which an
individual is slowly cast out and alienated.
In many ways the room in which Gregor lives in is the most symbolic of this
alienation. The four walls in which he lives is only accessible by a door which shifts from
opening via his control to being controlled by those other family members who live in the
house. Students should be asked to focus on why it matters who is in control of the door.
It should be noted that once he has transformed and opens the door after some hesitation,
he is hoping and wishing to be understood. Everyone immediately rejects him and the
door is slammed and locked from the outside, which demonstrates that our hero is no
longer transformed and fearful to expose himself, but has now exposed himself and was
rejected by those people he cared for the most. This element of rejection is the ultimate in
alienation and as people enter in his room throughout the text he always remains hidden,
conscious enough not to scare them. With his family in control of the door, at first his
sister enters the room consciously and with tenderness and eventually by the end of the
story people are opening the door only to dump unwanted belongings into the room and
in effect pretend that he simply does not exist. This door becomes the catalyst for
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Gregor’s travel between his room, which is a world of alienation, and the rest of the
apartment, which is a world that reminds him of his distant past and thereby generates a
stronger consciousness of his isolation and plunges him further into despair.
Summary:
This particular text demands that the reader straddle the line between reality and
fantasy while experiencing the dark realities of alienation and despair. While Gregor is
transformed into a bug and trapped in the confines of his own room, it is the presence of
others and their clear rejection of him that inevitably make him feel the most alone. The
way in which his sister comes in to care for his “needs” but never accepts him for what he
has become makes him conscious and aware of his isolation and disgusting presence. The
judgment with which his father bestows upon him crushes his sense of pride and sense of
self. Overall, the way in which people respond to Gregor’s transformation is what makes
him feel the most alone. He had done his best. Felt lonely on the sales road, worked
himself to the bone, supported his family for years, planned to send his sister to the
conservatory so she could play the violin and when he transforms into something
repulsive to them, he is immediately cast away as though none of that mattered. He
became useless and a burden to them and would eventually perish from the disparaging
isolation and loneliness. Students should conduct and in-depth examination of what it
means to be transformed into something that you do not chose, but rather something
arbitrarily decided on. The instructor should ask students if they can think of a time in
which they were transformed into something that they didn’t choose yet people treated
them differently because of it? In what ways does this transformation feel familiar to
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students? How can they relate to becoming something that they didn’t want to become?
How were they treated? Did they feel alone? Did they feel anxiety and despair? This is
the heart of the text and so many young students can find a connection here with Gregor.
This may feel very familiar when reflecting on their relationship to their parents. They
have undoubtedly at some point in their adolescence felt rejected by their parents and
trapped in this foreign, bug like world, where they are misunderstood and alienated. This
discussion should build an even stronger connection between students and their own
existential experiences of the world.
After a significant amount of text discussion, character analysis and thorough
examination of Gregor’s character, students should have been able to generate
connections between Kafka’s own life and the life of Gregor as well as identified the
subjective existential realities that they too experience. This in depth analysis of isolation,
alienation and despair should complement the previous unit on Dostoyevsky and provide
students with a more complete and solid foundation for understanding these existential
realms both through literature, and within themselves. It is also designed to equip
students with the tools necessary to analyze the next piece of literature and discover the
concealed theme of existentialist boundaries found in Camus’ The Stranger.
Assignments/Assessments:

Guided Reading
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Assignment 4c: Guided Reading
The objective of this reading assignment is to guide students’ focus to moments of
existential thought and experiences that occur during the story. Since this story has a
number of metaphors and existential undertones, it is imperative that students have a
guide to help them uncover the existential themes of alienation, despair and anxiety. This
handout and list of questions will help students to organize and identify their findings of
existential themes while reading, which will assist them in further evaluating the text
during seminar and small group discussion.
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Handout 4c: Guided Reading The Metamorphosis
1. What does Gregor wake up to find? What does this transformation mean existentially?
2. How does Gregor perceive his life? What does he feel about his job?
3. What is Gregor’s role within the Samsa family? How does this change?
4. How might Gregor perceive this metamorphosis as a good thing?
5. Do you think that Gregor felt sub human or dehumanized before this actual
change took place?
6. How does Gregor’s family characters change throughout the story? Be specific.
7. What is the significance of Gregor’s palate for food? Why do we need to know
this?
8. What is Gregor wounded by and who wounds him? What is the significance of the
object and the perpetrator?
9. How does Gregor react to Grete removing the furniture from his room? What does
this symbolize?
10. If you were to identify with one of the characters in this novella, who would it be
and why?
11. What existential theme did you find to be the more prevalent? Why? Site specific
examples.
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Handout 4c: Guided Reading (Continued)
Scene/Event/Character Action
Existential Idea Illustrated
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Unit Five: Albert Camus and The Stranger
Section One: The Short Life of Albert Camus
Time Frame: Three Ninety-minute Class Periods
Objective:
The overarching objective of this unit is to introduce students to the era in which
Camus wrote, how this era influenced and created the subjective interpretations he had of
the world around him and to illustrate the major events that occurred during his short
forty six years of life. At the conclusion of this unit, students will be able to map out the
major historical events that occurred during Camus’ life as well as chart the major events
of Camus’ life that ultimately created his own subjective reality. This particular unit will
place a tremendous amount of focus on the historical realities that Camus faced during
the twentieth century as these events truly transformed global existence for all of
mankind. At the conclusion of the unit it is expected that students will have a solid
foundation knowledge of the major events in Europe during the Second World War and
how the political climate was did not welcome the type of thinking or publications of
Camus.
Overview:
Born in the Northern African country of Algeria in 1913, Albert Camus was
raised by his widowed mother and grandmother in the Northern part of the country.
Camus’ father was killed during the very first year of the First World War; therefore
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before Camus was even old enough to understand the cold realities of death, war and
politics, he would permanently be affected by the repercussions of their intense presence
in the early twentieth century. As mentioned in the previous Kafka unit, the twentieth
century carried with it a tremendous amount of disillusionment with institutions and the
behaviors of humanity.
After the war ended in 1918 the world experienced a tremendous amount of
economic strife, which created the perfect storm for the rise of other political and
economic structures and would eventually give rise to the fascist state. While the rise of
fascism in Germany and Italy was becoming stronger and stronger, Camus was at the
University of Algiers busy developing a theater that offered a stage for socialist plays for
audiences of Algerian workers. He also joined the communist party and became a
journalist in 1938 where he focused on the state of Muslim affairs in certain geographic
areas of Algeria. Although World War II broke out in 1939, Camus did not find himself
directly affected by it until he traveled to Paris in 1940, which was the same year that the
Germans invaded France. This forced him back to North Africa where he was self
proclaimed as a pacifist and wrote a number of articles expressing his anti-war
sentiments. This behavior inevitably caused him to be exiled from Algeria and deemed a
threat to national security and within the same year, he returned to France. During the
first few years of his arrival there, the Germans had seized and occupied Paris and a
majority of Northern France and he became a journalist for an underground publication
that smuggled news regarding the war to the Parisian people. It was during the War that
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Camus published a number of his most infamous works including The Stranger and The
Myth of Sisyphus. After to war ended in 1945, Camus would continue to write and
publish his work. His work would continue to be charged with themes of the absurd, the
importance of internal thoughts of rebellion, deep human examination and the intense
experiences brought about via alienation, death and despair. His dedication to writing
would eventually be globally recognized and in 1957 he was awarded the Nobel Prize in
literature.
Summary:
The undertones of existential thought, and the overtones of absurdity are what
make Camus’ works some of the greatest of all time; and perhaps these themes would
have never come to fruition had he not experienced the absurdity of a post and pre world
war era. It is crucial that students develop a strong working knowledge of Camus’ life
experiences, and more importantly develop an understanding of the world in which he
lived. If students are able to understand the historical context in which The Stranger was
written, they will be more likely to recognize the motivations for Camus’ obsession with
mortality and the conclusion that it is the presence of death that make life completely
absurd and meaningless. If students are able to understand the atrocities that occurred
during the First World War, the economic and political climate of the era between the
two world wars, and the intense realities of World War II, they will be able to better
analyze and extract the existential themes of death, alienation and the absurd found in
The Stranger.
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Assignments/Assessments:

Timeline: Camus’ Life
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Assignment 5a: Timeline of Albert Camus
For a majority of the units, students will create a timeline that contains some of the major
life events of each author. The purpose of this timeline is to provide students with a way
to visualize and organize the place in history that the author lived through and to
reference the key aspects of their lives as it pertains to the existential texts that they
create. Timelines are an excellent introductory activity for students to utilize in order to
generate a foundational understanding of a new or unfamiliar topic. More specifically, it
also affords them the opportunity to solidify their knowledge of an author in order to
better understand the possible correlation between major events in the lives of authors
and the themes of existentialism in their texts.
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CAMUS TIMELINE
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Unit Five: Albert Camus and The Stranger
Section Two: Existential themes in The Stranger
Time Frame: Nine ninety-minute class periods
Objective:
This unit will most likely prove to be the most difficult and perhaps the most
fascinating for students. This section provides students with an opportunity to examine
the absurdity of existence through the lens of Camus’ character Meursault and to analyze
and discuss the boundaries of reality to which he travels. This exposure to the absurd can
in many ways alter the way in which students view their own worlds, at least temporarily,
and will certainly enlighten them to what it means to travel beyond the scope of morality,
control, laws and death. It will provide students with yet another tool, another lens with
which to see the world. By the end of the unit, students will be able to compare the
experience of the absurd to the experience of alienation and evaluate their similarities and
differences. Students will also be able to identify the intensity with which the existential
theme of absurdity flows through the text. Students will question realities of the freedom
humanity can discover when they stand at the boundary of life. At the end of this unit,
students will ultimately be able to masterfully discuss the existential theme of absurdity
and the liberation that comes when man realizes that he has reached the ultimate limit of
his own existence and anxiety.
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Overview:
Meeting Monsieur Meursault:
As with the previous units of this curriculum, the ‘meeting’ of the protagonist is
crucial to student analysis of the underlying existential theme. In the case of Camus’ The
Stranger, Meursault represents the existential realities of a man who experiences life as
meaningless and fails to recognize the finality of death. It is these paired thoughts that
cause him to experience his existence in a very lifeless and indifferent fashion. It can be
seen very vividly in part one of this text that Meursault is unmoved by almost everything
around him expect for his own physical gratifications, desires or discomforts. The only
times in which the reader is exposed to his emotional experience of life is when he is
discussing the way he feels physically during moments in which he “should” be more
focused on the emotional weight of the scenario. Students should be directed to focus on
how he Meursault describes his processional to the funeral for his mother, how he
expresses his experience with Marie for the first time in the water, and how he feels
walking along the beach moments before he kills the Arab man. In each on of these
scenarios the only thing that is described in absolute detail is the way in which he
experiences these events physically. Camus illustrates only the heat of the sun overhead
and the sweat beading across his forehead during the processional and in no way even
alludes to Meursault’s emotional response to the process. Again this is illustrated by the
way in which Meursault wanted Marie physically when touching her in the water and in
no way exposes the reader to his emotional desires for her. As far as the reader is
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concerned, he truly has no emotional attachments or sentiments that require further
investigation. This is even further exemplified by his lackadaisical attitude towards her
when she inquires about his love for her and then again when she wants to marry him.
This overarching lack of emotional response and clear sense of clinging only to
the present and physical moment of the now, demonstrates to the readers that this
character deems the entirety of life meaningless and that by not recognizing that there is a
future or a past, Meursault is in effect denying the existence of death. If each moment
simply is, and if he pays no attention to the reality that more moments are to come, and
that each moment has its inescapable end, he is in fact denying that death is present. As
the very end of this existential text, Meursault finally becomes aware of the reality that
death is near; and not death in general, but his death.
It is through the startling realization that death is certain that he discovers that it
is only through the acknowledgement of death that life becomes meaningful. This is the
absurdity of it all. Man is hurled into this world arbitrarily, given the freedom and
plaguing responsibility to make millions of choices, assign those choices some moral or
ethical meaning and that the only certainty is that this meaningless life will be
extinguished at some unknown moment in time. It is the challenge of man to find comfort
within the confines of this absurd existence and in the case of Meursault it was the
discovery that the world was indeed indifferent and that the choices of his path were his
alone that bestowed upon him a sense of calmness.
Character Analysis:
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In order for students to better understand and identify existential themes in The
Stranger, they must first get analyze the characters of this story other than Meursault.
There are three very crucial characters in the text that help the protagonist to develop and
become self aware enough to recognize the sheer absurdity of life. In order for students to
grasp the indifference that is so prevalent in the life of Meursault, Camus used three very
distinct characters to reflect his sentiments of meaninglessness and relationship to death.
Each one of these characters represents some extremely important component of the
absurd and the meaning that one ascribes to life.
Maman: Meursault’s deceased mother.Although Meursault’s mother is never an actual
living character, she immediately represents the relationship that Meursault has with
death as well as with life. It is extremely interesting that Camus chooses to use the
protagonist’s mother to depict his relationship to death, primarily because as his mother
she inevitably also conveys his relationship to life. As a mother, she provided life to him
and therefore it is brilliantly connected that she should be the one to also represent the
character’s changing relationship to death. This character in effect contains the entire
existential dilemma of man’s relationship to the absurdity of the world. She is the
arbitrary giver of Meursault’s life, and then her death becomes the catalyst for his own
subjective experience of death. This life-death relationship is the central existential theme
of the absurd and it is his relationship to this character, or this absurdity that is put on
trial, which in effect demonstrates his indifference to the moral structure of this
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experience called life. He is well aware that everything in life simply does not matter,
holds no value and is not worth attaching himself to for he, like everyone else, is simply
waiting to die. His indifference to his mother’s death and his indifference to life is his
mirrored response to the way life meets man with its non-judgmental indifferent to man.
Marie: Meursault’s mistress. In many ways Marie represents the illusion of freedom in
Meursault’s life. Instead of looking for a way to reverse the reality of his mother’s death
through mourning or guilt or sorrow, Meursault seeks physical comforts in Marie. She
encourages him to take pleasure in her physically and does not push or reject him when
he does not give the emotional responses that she would prefer. This allows him to
remain in a place where he doesn’t have to acknowledge the absurdity of life and he can
remain in a simple place of physical indulgences. As she fades away while he is in prison,
his intense introspection and self-reflection becomes present and more and more
overbearing to the demeanor of his character.
Raymond: Meursault’s Friend. Raymond’s character represents the antithesis to
Meursault’s indifferent, emotionless attitude. He is passionate, connected, hot tempered,
and emotionally responds to almost everything, especially humiliation. The presence of
his character in this novel provides students with a way to interpret and detect the clear
indifferent attitude that Meursault exemplifies by comparing his aloofness to the heated
emotional behaviors of Raymond. He is the character that edges Meursault closer and
closer to the edge of existence and into seeing the reality of his own death and the innate
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absurdity of his own life. Raymond provides the tool necessary for Meursault to make the
final choice to commit to his awareness of the absurdity of life and the powerful reality of
choice in a meaningless existence. The gun represents this life changing choice of
whether Meursault chooses to become accepting of life’s pointlessness and
the
inescapable reality of death. This choice ultimately frees him from the looming reality of
death for when he becomes condemned he becomes able to accept the finality of death
and that in that knowledge he becomes truly able to live.
Existential Theme of Absurdity:
After thorough analysis of the protagonist and supporting characters, students should
be able to clearly identify the indifference with which Meursault approaches the world
and thereby recognize that this behavior illustrates the epitome of the existential view that
life is completely absurd. In many ways, this theme of absurdity builds upon that notion,
which was so prevalent in the first part of Notes from Underground, that the laws of
nature are not sympathetic to the suffering of humanity, but simply generate a wall with
which to contain man and limit his understanding of his own existence. The themes of
alienation, isolation and despair that were prominent in the previous two literary pieces
are extraordinarily relevant when discussing the absurdity of life depicted in The Stranger
and the notion that death is constantly looming over one’s life is perhaps the most
important realization of all. In order to reach the conclusion that life is absurd and
without meaning means that the individual must initially make a leap of faith into the
unknown, come face to face with the wall of the laws of nature, endure the anxiety of the
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freedom to make the choice to continue, transform into someone that is perhaps so
misunderstood that they are alienated from all others only to realize through reflection
and hindsight that life itself has no intrinsic meaning and simply has the intention only to
end in death. It is this reflection, this very moment of examination that one reaches the
limitations of life and arrives at the absurd. This text exemplifies the arrival at this place
of absurdity in an incredibly powerful way. It will be through this text that students can
reflect on the exhausting journey of the existential man and perhaps conclude that this
level of existence is an infinite abyss through the absurd that simply takes the individual
from life to death and that he is ultimately responsible for the meaning ascribed to it.
Summary:
While this story portrays an individual who simply has no hope and clear
indifference to the choices and realities of life, this story brings to life the notion that
when man can recognize that he is ultimately condemned to death he becomes able to
live. Students will begin to identify that the stance of the existentialist is that there is no
meaning to life, that individuals at times feel estranged from reality when struggling to
prescribe some meaning to a life that is absurd in that it simply leads humanity down the
path to death. This text demonstrates this profound notion that humanity must create its
own meaning to life in order to respond to life’s indifference to mankind. The laws of
nature that govern man’s logic and intellect are indifferent to his experience of himself
and the world. His suffering is his own, and in effect so are his joys. Therefore to give
meaning to life, one has to accept death and that it is simply the last limitation, or
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boundary of man. This unit will tie together the previous units by giving students an
ultimate “ah ha” moment of the path of the existentialist.
Assignments/Assessments:

Comic Strip/Story Board—Path of the Existential Man

Character and Author Analysis.
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Assignment 5b: Story Board of The Stranger
This assignment is designed to help students to illustrate and evaluate the main
components of The Stranger. This assignment requires students to draw six to eight
different scenes from the text that they found to be the most relevant to the theme of
absurdity, alienation, death or any other existential concept that they discover while
reading the text. They will be asked to draw the scene and to provide a caption below the
illustration that describes the existential element that is depicted. This assignment is
beneficial for many different students since it employs multiple modalities with visual,
verbal, and logical learning styles deeply incorporated.
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Handout 5b: Story Board of The Stranger
The Stranger Storyboard Assignment
This storyboard assignment will consist of a series of drawings that illustrate and
depict a scene from the story that exemplifies an existential theme that you observed
while reading this text. It can illustrate one main existential theme that you identify or
several different existential characteristics if you discover a number of them. Think of
this assignment like it is a comic strip from the newspaper. You must support the
illustrations with captions that describe the existential component below the drawing.
Select six-eight segments of The Stranger that you believe to be the most
significant to the theme of existentialism and create your storyboard.
Your storyboard must include the following:

A minimum of six frames that clearly illustrate the scene/section of the story.
(*If you want to create the frames using cut outs from magazines and create a
collage that would be acceptable as well.)

You must include color in each frame

A caption describing the existential theme must be included

An accurate account of the story must be created. You are not making a new story
but rather illustrating components of the Stranger.
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Assignment 5c: Character and Author Analyses The Stranger
Students will analyze and assess the main characters of the text and discuss how
each of these characters enhance and/or reflect Meursault’s sense of life, death and the
absurdity of it all. The purpose of this exercise is to help students to closely examine the
text and evaluate the characters and their relationship to the protagonist. These
relationships are what help to define Meursault and to illustrate to the reader the realities
that he experiences. As done previously in this course, students will approach this
assignment in cooperative groups. For each group of six, students will be given different
characters to assess and will then discuss their responses collectively. Students will assess
the following characters: Meursault, Raymond, Marie, Maman, the prosecutor, and the
Chaplin.
In addition to analyzing characters, students will also be responsible for linking
previous knowledge of the author’s life and the story content. Students should be able to
make the connection that every individual is only capable of writing or discussing that
which they can subjectively experience in reality, fantasy or both. Students must be able
to connect the components of the text that resemble some known experiences of the
author’s life and distinguish how well they correlate to one another. The instructor must
be sure to remind students that this does not mean interpreting the text as an
autobiography but rather an opportunity to identify the connection between the author’s
subjective reality and the text.
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Handout 5c: Character & Author Analyses: The Stranger
Character's Name
1. Is the character static or dynamic? How do you know?
2. Describe the character
3. What parts of the story provide the deepest understanding of this character?
4. In what ways is the character influenced by his/her surroundings?
5. How is this character's society or reality different than yours?
6. How does the character respond to other characters?
(Especially to Meursault)
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7. Is the character self-aware? Do they know how others view them?
8. How does the character view themself? What is their existence like?
9. Do you think this person’s behavior is normal and acceptable based on society’s
standards today? Why or why not?
10. In what ways did this character help to enhance the theme of the absurd? (*Think
about how they related to the Meursault)
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Author Analysis:
1. Based upon what you know about the author and the content of the story, what type of
person is the author?
2. What major influences do you think caused the author to write in this way?
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Unit Six: Jean Paul Sartre and No Exit
Section One: No Exit—The Meaning of Death and the Absurdity of Life
Time Frame: Six Ninety-Minute Class Periods
Objective:
While the previous three literary units began with a brief biographical
introduction to the author’s life and the historical context in which they wrote their pieces
of existential literature, this unit will not follow the same pattern of organization. As this
in the concluding unit of this curriculum, it seemed fitting to take the academic training
wheels off and allow students to delve into Sartre’s play ‘No Exit’ without any
biographical introduction of the author. This structure should provide students an
opportunity to connect their own prior knowledge of existentialism and develop their own
interpretation of the text. In addition, this format will also allow for a stronger concluding
section to this course by ending the curriculum with a formal analysis of existentialism in
the twentieth century and an examination of its course throughout history. By the end of
this section, students will be able to assess the subtle nuances of Sartre’s play, ‘No Exit’,
and develop their own analysis of the existential sentiments of choice, freedom and the
relevance of death.
Overview:
Students will begin this section by reading the entire manuscript of ‘No Exit’ and
utilizing a guided reading worksheet to discover and analyze the themes of existentialism.
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During their reading, students will find that this text encompasses a tremendous number
of existential themes that have been discussed in previous units as well as some new
concepts such as the freedom of choice, the notion that existence precedes essence and
the destruction caused by human nature. Students will first examine the characters and
then analyze why the setting of hell is the most relevant component to this play’s central
existential theme.
Character Analysis:
Unlike the previous texts, it is more challenging for students to pin point just one
protagonist or antagonist in this text. The three people who are present in this text are all
so clearly interconnected that there distinguishing the main character may be difficult for
students. Guided reading questions for this text will assist students in identifying the
different roles of each character. Students must examine who each character is and how
each one relies on the others to define who they are. Since the play does begin with
Joseph Garcin and the other two characters are admitted to hell after Garcin has assessed
and built a relationship to his surroundings they are the ones who antagonize Garcin
throughout the play. Therefore, no matter how subtle it may be to students, Garcin can
indeed be considered the protagonist and Inez most resembles the dominant antagonist.
Instead of an in depth character analysis, students will define characters by the
relationships they have to one another. Students will identify that Inez embodies the
existential thinker, while Garcin and Estelle embody the misunderstandings of human
morals, ethics and choice.
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Mr. Garcin sets the stage for the entire play. After he has asked a series of
questions relating to things only relevant to the land of the living like toothbrushes,
mirrors and sleep he is left alone by the valet. After experiencing this isolation for merely
a few moments he immediately rings the bell for someone to come. He exhibits a sense of
despair at this new feeling of isolation when no one comes for him and perceives his new
life as one without escape. This thought process is quickly derailed when he is almost
immediately greeted with the presence of Inez, who seems to relieve him of this despair,
at least momentarily. He begins his relationship with her by adhering to manners and
politeness only to experience her cold and shrewd responses. His relationship with Inez is
the one that displays dialogue between the existentialist (Inez) and the common human
experience (Garcin).
Garcin believes that everything is a fluke and randomly occurred, whereas Inez
argues that it has been planned and determined for them. She believes that the scenario is
intentional and has an order, yet it will be the choice of the three of them to devise the
subjective reality of it. Estelle simply contests that ignorance is bliss and that she should
like to think that it is all a fluke, thereby alleviating responsibility. In addition, Inez can
further be seen as the existentialist when she asserts, "One always dies too soon—or too
late. And yet one’s whole life is complete at that moment, with a line drawn neatly under
it, ready for the summing up. You are—your life, and nothing else."
The three of them are each other’s torturer, which leads Garcin to assert, “hell is
other people.”iii This relay of suffering is continuous and infinite to which there is no
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escape and when they realize they are stuck in this continuum, they simply laugh with
one another and Garcin’s fateful closing line, “Well, well then let’s get on with it…”.iv
Existential Theme of Freedom and “Existence precedes Essence”:
One of the most prevalent themes in this text is the notion of the freedom of
choice, and that no matter how much the three main characters attempt to believe that this
situation is a mistake or a fluke, they are ultimately responsible for their own experience.
They have the freedom to choose whether they torture one another, whether they obsess
over the hopelessness of their existence and the freedom to cope with the reality without
an exit. Students should be able to recognize that they are not required by any sort of
devil or scientist to torture one another, but that they choose to torture one another by
simply holding on to their own desires and insecurities. The notion that their current
situation, i.e. their existence, came to be before the dynamics of their situation developed,
i.e. their essence, is crucial to understanding Sartre’s idea of existence precedes essence.
Individuals are not prescribed some specific fate, or preconceived nature, but rather they
are placed into existence and ultimately responsible for their own essence. They become
who they are based entirely upon their choices and therefore are accountable for all of the
suffering they experience and inflict upon others.
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Summary:
Students will conclude this unit with a working knowledge of the impact that the
freedom of choice has upon the existential man. The examination of ‘No Exit’ will likely
leave students with a daunting sense that the existential dilemma is brought on by death,
freedom, anxiety, and alienation and indeed has no exit. To end the course with this piece
of literature shows students that according to the existentialist, even in a life without
death life is meaningless and still plagued with responsibility.
Assignments/Assessments:

Guided Reading

What would you do? Writing Prompt.
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Assignment 6a: Guided Reading ‘No Exit’
The objective of this reading assignment is to guide students’ focus to moments of
existential thought and experiences that occur during the play. Since this is the first play
that students have read in this course, it is crucial that the instructor provide them with
some parameters with which to approach the text. This handout and list of questions will
help students to organize and identify their findings of existential themes while reading,
which will assist them in further evaluating the text during seminar and small group
discussion.
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Handout 6a: Guided Reading Questions ‘No Exit’
Section I. Character Analysis and Storyline
1. What material thing was it that Garcin was upset about not having? What was so
absurd about his desire to have this item?
2. What did each character expect to find when they arrived in hell?
3. What did Garcin do almost immediately after the Valet departed?
4. What did both Estelle and Inez think and feel when they saw Garcin? What is
ironic about their initial thoughts?
5. How does each character try to torture the other? (Be specific!)
a. Garcin:
b. Inez
c. Estelle
6. Describe how the characters died.
a. Garcin:
b. Inez
c. Estelle
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7. Who seems to be the most accepting of their situation from the beginning?
Explain.
Section II. Existential Themes
1. Inez describes her situation as “the same idea as in the cafeteria, where customers
serve themselves.”
a. What does she mean?
2. Estelle: “When I can’t see myself I begin to wonder if I really and truly exist.”
Explain this idea existentially.
3. Garcin: “There’s no need for red-hot pokers. Hell is – other people!” What does
he mean?
4. Garcin: “For ever, and ever, and ever. [A long silence]. Well, well, let’s get on
with it…”
a. Explain a theme of choice/consequence/suffering/anxiety/alienation in the
end of the play. Don’t forget to use this quote.v
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Assignment 6b: Writing prompt
Students will imagine for a moment that they find themselves in the same
predicament as the characters in the play. They will be asked to answer a number of
questions and write a paragraph response describing what they would do and how
they would feel if they were in this place. They will discuss what they would find
intolerable and torturous about the situation and what components would be
tolerable or perhaps relieving to them. This activity is designed to get students to
think critically and existentially and will assist them as they evaluate the text.
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Unit Six: Jean Paul Sartre and No Exit
Section Two: Jean Paul Sartre—The “Official” Existentialist
Time Frame: Three Ninety-Minute Class Periods
Objective:
As the concluding unit of this curriculum, students will get to the heart of what
the term existentialism really meant in terms of an actual fixed philosophical doctrine.
The previous authors, philosophers, and thinkers were all the precursors to this official
doctrine of existentialism that manifested itself in Paris post World War II, but were not
classified as existentialists until well after their time. Students may find it interesting that
Jean Paul Sartre is the only individual of this curriculum that proclaimed himself to be an
existentialist and that individuals such as Camus actually denied their affiliations with the
discipline entirely. In lieu of a lengthy biographical account of Jean Paul Sartre, this unit
section will focus on solidifying the definition of existentialism, as concluded by Sartre,
and depicting for students where the train of existential thought has finally stationed after
a few centuries of intense human thought. At the conclusion of this unit, students will be
able to define and identify the official doctrines of existentialism, track the roots of
existential thought from Kierkegaard to Sartre and evaluate the “grand finale” of the
existential path of man.
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Overview:
As the last section of the curriculum, this section bears a certain responsibility to
act as the conclusion to this existential journey that students have embarked upon;
therefore, further discussing Sartre’s existential doctrine, as seen in ‘No Exit’, ought to
provide the best conclusion that can be given considering the open ended nature of
existential thought.
Since students have delved into Sartre’s text, had classroom discussions
surrounding the direct and indirect implications of the situation of the characters and have
been exposed to the situational anxieties presented in the many other texts of the course,
they should be able to identify how ‘No Exit’ provides the perfect conclusion to the
existential journey.
This text begins with the scene of a man who finds himself in hell and
experiences the reality of an alienated man in a room alone without the hope of even a
moment to escape its isolation. He has been exiled; he is “underground” and outside of
the existence of others. This can represent Dostoyevsky’s existential notion of isolation.
Then we have the other characters, who come into the room and at first begin to relieve
one another of the horrors of isolation and alleviate the fear that a torturer awaits them.
However, as the infamous line suggests, “hell is other people”, Sartre resurrects the other
aspect of the isolation which is the despair that comes from recognizing that one is alone
when in the presence of others and that one cannot escape this reality when people are
constantly invoking their desire to cause suffering to themselves and others. This
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exemplifies the despair seen in Kafka’s The Metamorphosis. Camus’ notion of the absurd
is also included in this text as Sartre brings about the way man’s relationship to death
creates his relationship to his own existence. Camus felt that the presence of death
created a naturally meaningless life and that man had to prescribe his own meaning and
relevance. Sartre takes this one step farther to show that life’s mundane morals and ethics
have even less meaning with the absence of death.
Sartre asserts that perhaps isolation, the presence of death and the freedom to
create your own meaning in life are perhaps not the dilemmas of man, but the wonders
and the blessings of being human. The choice to make meaning, the ability to create
one’s own essence, the knowledge that one day life will conclude and the quietude found
in isolation are all the extraordinary ways in which man can make the leap of faith into a
realm free from simply being a part of Nature and the perfect order of things. In the end,
it is the freedom to choose one’s own reality that creates life in the face of death, it is the
constant presence of choice that provides company in the pangs of isolation, it is the
constant metamorphosis of humanity that launches us into the absurd, and the presence of
the absurd that gives us the freedom to choose our own meaning. The existential path is
in fact a circle, spiraling through existence as a never-ending rabbit hole with no certainty
of where it will cause one to land but with the certainty that it is the path in which one
can take in order to escape the perfect order of things. The existential path is where
humanity becomes self-defined.
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Summary:
This section should have been a reflective experience for students to see the
interconnections of existential thinking and the revolving door with which one can enter
and exit its exclusive and isolated world. The leap of faith into the arms of God or into
the arms of nothingness perpetuates the beginning of an individual’s self-reflection and
the isolation in which one finds on the other side evokes a sense of anxiety and
discomfort since it places one outside of the perfect order of Nature. The alienation is
intensified by the presence of others who do not understand, who have no knowledge or
notion of that leap or the presence of another realm of reality. The alienation causes one
to question the meaning of life’s ethics and emotional responses and the recognition of
death as the only certainty leads one to identify the absurdity of it all. Then the
acknowledgement of a life without death provides the individual with the profound
epiphany that it is the imminent reality of death, the alienation caused by others, the leap
into the unknown and the freedom to choose all or none of this that gives man precisely
what he is looking for—a way out of the system, an exit from the perfectly explained
order of things.
It is the presence of death that is the official exit, and the beginning of this play
called life is not meaningless because the curtain closes, but rather the curtain closes
because the beginning would be meaningless without it. ‘
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Assignments/Assessment:

Seminar discussion topics

Song Selection
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Assignment 6c: Seminar Discussion Topics
Students will be required to select a discussion topic to lead a ten-minute portion of a
seminar discussion. Each student will select a scene or quote from the play ‘No Exit’ that
represents a clear existential moment within the text and generate a series of questions to
ask students during a seminar discussion. During this time, the student who is leading the
seminar is responsible for asking more probing questions and assisting the class in
approaching the text from a deeper and different perspective. This exercise provides
students with an opportunity to take on a leadership role as well as share their own
assertions, interpretations and understandings of the text. It also allows the instructor to
identify those students who have grasped the existential themes throughout the course.
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Assignment 6d: Existential Song Selection
One of the most connecting mediums for students is music. When given the
opportunity to discuss or share their music students become a little bit more alive and
tend to connect with the rhythm of the sound along with the lyrics. This assignment is
designed to provide students with an opportunity to express their understanding of
existentialism through song selection. Students will be asked to select a song that
exemplifies any one of the existential themes that have been discussed over the duration
of this course. It can be a song that focuses on the way an existentialist might view
anxiety, absurdity, death, despair, or alienation. They will select the song, bring in a copy
of the song for the class to listen to and then present for 1-2 minutes why they chose this
song and how it relates to the theme of existentialism.
116
WORKS CITED
i
Scott, Nathan A. Mirrors of Man in Existentialism. Nashville: Abingdon, 1978. Print.
ii
Nietzsche, Friedrich, and Walter Kaufmann. The Gay Science: With a Prelude in
Rhymes and an Appendix of Songs : Translated, with Commentary by Walter Kaufmann.
New York: Random, 1974. Print.
iii
Sartre, Jean-Paul. No Exit, and Three Other Plays. New York: Vintage International,
1989. Print.
iv
Sartre, Jean-Paul. No Exit, and Three Other Plays. New York: Vintage International,
1989. Print.
v
Brandt. Dcsdk12.org. Web. <https://sites.google.com/a/dcsdk12.org/mr-brandt-swebsite/seniors/existentialismthe-strangerno-exit>
117
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Brandt. Dcsdk12.org. Web. <https://sites.google.com/a/dcsdk12.org/mr-brandt-swebsite/seniors/existentialismthe-strangerno-exit>
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Dostoyevsky, Fyodor M. Notes from Underground [and], The Double. Trans. Jessie
Coulson. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1972. Print.
Kafka, Franz, and Erich Heller. The Basic Kafka. New York: Washington Square,
1979. Print.
Kierkegaard, Søren. Fear and Trembling; Repetition. Trans. Howard Vincent. Hong
and Edna Hatlestad Hong. Princeton N.J: Princeton Univ., 1983. Print.
Kierkegaard, Søren, Jane Chamberlain, and Jonathan Rée. The Kierkegaard Reader.
Oxford: Blackwell, 2001. Print.
Kierkegaard, Søren, Alexander Dru, and Walter Kaufmann. The Present Age and Of
the Difference between a Genius and an Apostle. New York: Harper & Row, 1962.
Print.
Nietzsche, Friedrich, and Walter Kaufmann. The Gay Science: With a Prelude in
Rhymes and an Appendix of Songs : Translated, with Commentary by Walter
Kaufmann. New York: Random, 1974. Print.
Sartre, Jean-Paul. No Exit, and Three Other Plays. New York: Vintage International,
1989. Print.
Scott, Nathan A. Mirrors of Man in Existentialism. Nashville: Abingdon, 1978. Print.